Ricky Jay is arguably the greatest master of sleight-of-hand and legerdemain in America today, but he’s more than an old-school magician with contemporary wit. He’s an actor, sure, a familiar presence in the films of David Mamet and Paul Thomas Anderson, yet he’s also a historian of magic and showbiz oddities, a collector of stories and lore. He’s an author, raconteur, and showman who prefers to work as “a close-up magician,” as he’s called in Molly Bernstein’s admiring documentary. He is a wonder with cards, his tool of choice; and the nonchalance of his presentation makes his mastery all the more riveting.
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