What perfect timing! I JUST watched David Mamet’s ‘House of Games’ for the first time two days ago. As a casual fan of magic and a big fan of Ricky Jay himself, I have high hopes for directors Molly Bernstein and Alan Edelstein’s ‘Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries & Mentors of Ricky Jay’. Here’s they synopsis:
What happens when documentary filmmakers—whose mission is to probe, explore, and Reveal—take as their subject one of the world’s greatest living magicians, whose life and art are basically off limits to probing, exploration and revelation? More than a decade in the making, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay is the captivating result of this curious conundrum: a mesmerizing journey into the world of modern magic and the small circle of eccentric geniuses who mastered it.
At its center is the multitalented Ricky Jay, a best-selling author and historian, an acclaimed actor, a leading collector of antiquarian books and artifacts, but above all a conjurer capable of creating a profound sense of wonder and disbelief in even the most jaded of audiences. In his extraordinary—and extraordinarily popular—one-man shows, Ricky Jay and his 52 Assistants and Ricky Jay: On the Stem, he proved himself to be the contemporary embodiment of an elite lineage, offering audiences not only exhilarating entertainment, but also a rare glimpse of a secret, lost world.
Kino Lorber has picked up ‘Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries & Mentors of Ricky Jay’ for distribution and it looks like it will be hitting limited theatres starting in May. For more information, head over to the film’s official website.