Jason (Joe Tyler Gold) gets caught in a shell game in DESPERATE ACTS OF MAGIC
DESPERATE ACTS OF MAGIC (Joe Tyler Gould & Tammy Caplan, 2013)
Quad Cinema
34 West 13th St.
Opens Friday, May 3
212-255-2243
www.quadcinema.com
www.desperateactsofmagic.com
Tammy Caplan and Joe Tyler Gold’s Desperate Acts of Magic is an amateurish if well-meaning vanity project that is desperately in need of actors who can do magic and magicians who can act. Gold who wrote the film, inspired by his own experiences, and produced and edited it with Caplan, stars as Jason Kant, a magician trying to make it in the business, following in the footsteps of his childhood magic camp friend Steve Kramer (Jonathan Levit), who gets all the good gigs and hot women. After being swindled by the beautiful Stacy Dietz (Valerie Dillman), Jason discovers that she is a magician as well, and the two decide to start working on an act for an important magic contest. But Stacey turns out to be wild and unpredictable, so Jason teams up with groupie Ellen Taylor (Sascha Alexander) instead, which leads to a whole set of different problems as the contest approaches. Unfortunately, none of the magic in Desperate Acts of Magic, all of which was done for real, with no camera tricks, is very interesting. It might be cool to insiders, but it all seems like standard card, coin, and flower tricks to the less initiated; the movie mentions such superstars as David Copperfield, David Blaine, Criss Angel, and Penn & Teller, but all of the magic in the film is of supremely lower scale. Gold and Caplan, who plays Brenda, also have an agenda that gets tiresome, promoting the idea that women should be more than just assistants but equals to men in the business, especially when it comes to being the main magician. (The production notes stress that this is essentially the third movie in history to feature a female magician.) Gold gives his character the last name “Kant,” perhaps a reference to philosopher Immanuel Kant or even Kant Magic Shop, but it probably should have been spelled “Cant.” The lone saving grace is Dillman, who is excellent as the deeply troubled Stacey, but otherwise Desperate Acts of Magic pulls no rabbits out of any hats. The film opens at the Quad on May 3, with Gold, Caplan, and Dillman participating in Q&As following various screenings on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.