Please join us for an enjoyable discussion about “In And Of Itself” if you’ve seen the film on Hulu.
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Interested to follow along with this thread.
My wife and I watched it however many months ago, not when it first came out, but early on enough to not have it spoiled at all. I thought it was absolutely fantastic in the heat of it. Some of the early stuff didn’t land, but I was into it. At the end, I cried. I thought about what it means to label yourself and how these labels can stick with you in a good way and a bad way. I thought about how powerful it was as a whole.
And then I never thought of it again. And that is extremely rare for me. In the moment and especially at the end I thought it was important but by the time I woke up the next day, I had moved on. I am not sure what that says about me or the movie. It almost felt like a really touching commercial or YouTube thing I just happened to flip on.
I don’t mean this as a criticism, I don’t think, but it’s just something I thought about when I saw this thread pop up. Interested to see how it’s stuck with people, or hasn’t, and how they consider it weeks later.
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Meant to watch it when it came out but it got away from me; read Randy’s tweet last week announcing this episode and watched it over the weekend.
My overwhelming thought after having watched it was that I wished I had seen the stage show instead of the TV special. I think a lot of the segments, especially the finale, would have been a lot more impactful if I had been in the theatre instead of my couch.
Only other thought for now is that the magic in the show is completely astonishing and also not the point of the show nor the piece I’ll think about for the longest, which is quite an accomplishment.
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I cried too a couple times. More related to connectivity of people and that feeling of needing to connect to others that’s been so heightened during the pandemic.
I hope there’s sufficient discussion of the Patrick Reed resemblance
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It was legitimately distracting!
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is it too early / missing the point to start talking about how he might have done some of the tricks - namely the reveal at the end?
it felt like on the pod @KVV had some thoughts around how he was pulling that off, associating it to a card trick, potentially related to how they were stacked together orginally? curious if you care to elaborate.
I loved the question at the beginning of the pod asking whether or not you’re a fan of magic. I effing love this stuff. It’s so incredible to watch. And part of what I enjoy so much is just theorizing how they actually do it without ever really knowing for sure.
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I assumed it had to do with good record keeping by his “staff” and either a good memory by him and someone or someone feeding him info
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yeah my initial tought it maybe the wall they were hanging on was like a two way mirror or somewhere in that foyer there were hidden cameras where he was watching and it basically turns into a massive memorization exercise for him.
or maybe it is some real mentalist shit. who could say.
Adam Richman from Man v. Food
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I think they ripped off part of the “identity” card when they got let into the auditorium. I assumed they had mapped the seating chart based on identity card.
As far as the “magic” aspect was concenred, I was most blown away by the slight of hand, card trick stuff
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Whoa…this almost exactly how this went for me. Totally caught up in it while watching it. Asking myself some tough questions along the way thinking this might unlock some human potential deep inside me. Then the next day I nearly forgot it completely. I think this says more about me than the show but it’s wild to hear another person have the same experience.
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It just didn’t grab me in any meaningful way. I’m not sure why that is. I thought the magic was cool and, like I said, it made me emotional at the time, but it was remarkably fleeting.
And I’m the kind of dude who will watch a movie and Google it’s forum somewhere to read other people’s thoughts for the next week or so. Hahahaha.
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I think this excerpt from the review below is aptly said and represents how I felt watching the show. I regret not having the opportunity to see it in person.
The place of magic in In & Of Itself is not to amaze for amazement’s sake, although I was certainly stunned by some of what happened. It’s that the unreal is used to create the super-real: an experience you know not to take literally creates a truthful feeling of connectedness in an audience. You’ll see that feeling in the climax of the show, which starts about 15 minutes from the end of the film, and I can honestly, truly tell you it felt just like that to me when I saw it. The things you’re seeing aren’t literally what they seem, in the same way a body is not literally being sawed in half in another show, or a rabbit isn’t really spontaneously appearing in a hat. But the feeling was entirely genuine, in that it activated a part of me that craved that moment of being seen and identified and recognized as myself , and that’s what you see in the often emotional reactions of DelGaudio’s audience in the film.
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Sums up my feelings as well. Since seeing it I’ve tried to figure out why and I think it’s two main things. One is the take home message was not that revelatory to me and the other is the two main “wow” magic moments kind of fell flat due to how (I think) they were done. The letter from a family member part and the finale were very “production” magic to me, i.e. they weren’t really showing off the skill of the magician but more the skill of the production team. And that isn’t really the magic I enjoy so these emotional cornerstones of the show didn’t really work. This is a me problem for sure because for most magic performances I spend more time trying to figure out how things are done rather than just enjoying the moment.
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This is great, dupes. Well put.
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A lot of the magic was more the magic of being organized/coordinated
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what a weird job for whichever production assistant was responsible for driving a gold painted brick to a random New York intersection every night.
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Holy shit, I’m not a pod guy, so I won’t listen to the pod, but I just heard this snip on Phil’s tweets.
Is that @KVV saying “Come on Here the Noise” by “Ratt”?!
Never meet your idols, friends. I am shook.
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Listen, I knew it was a bad take immediately. I was struggling in my brain to come up with Round and Round, but couldn’t. It’s bad. I deserved to be canceled.
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I could tell you knew it was bad in the heat of the moment, but I had to air it out publicly.
The wound is too fresh right now.
Also, it’s “Cum on Feel the Noize” dammit.
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