Criss Angel's Mindfreak: Collector's Edition
E1
Available Now

No matter how many Ed Hardy shirts and gold chains he drapes over himself, Criss Angel can't hide the fact he spent his entire childhood in his room geeking out on magic tricks and perfecting his sleight of hand. In his A&E TV series, Angel manages to make street magic cool for the public, even if we all know he's secretly a dork.

The first five seasons of his successful show are collected for the first time in a massive 15-disc set which includes six unaired episodes, commentaries and other exclusive bonus features.

Despite his manufactured appearance, Angel (real name Christopher Sarantakos) has a real love for the art of magic, and clearly enjoys scaring people on the street with levitations and daring escape attempts with an emphasis on the dark and gory. With tricks such as cutting through an arm with a buzz saw, walking through plate glass and being impaled on a fork lift, Angel lives up to his show's title, genuinely freaking out anyone who dares to watch.

Not all the tricks included are top-notch: one disturbing display has Angel attempting to enlarge young women's bust lines with the power of his mind. Needless to say, this bit of perversity was never aired on TV.

Because of his penchant for the extreme, the frequently shirtless Angel has been an easy target for comedians, and a tame Internet parody included in the set proves that he may have a sense of humour after all. What Angel does take seriously is the art and power of illusion. Much like Harry Houdini, who strived to disprove charlatans who claimed they could speak to the dead, Angel believes what he does are simply tricks for entertainment value and this collection definitely proves entertaining.

A behind-the-scenes episode reveals the massive preparation involved with the creation of every illusion and, even though it's clearly a put-on because no magician (save for Penn and Teller) would reveal a secret, this particular episode is worthwhile for the vintage footage of Angel performing as a kid. By allowing the audience to see his teenage self in red short-shorts and an early-'80s 'do, Angel reveals himself to be just as geeky as David Copperfield once was.

Upcoming Releases
Feb. 16 - Law Abiding Citizen; Bronson; Walled In; Coco Before Chanel; Lola Montes: Criterion.

Amanda Stefaniuk is a freelance writer who literally grew up in a video store.