Money Voodoo Doll Money voodoo dolls are a popular form of magical practice aimed at attracting wealth and financial abundance. These dolls are created and manipulated in rituals with the intention of invoking positive energies and vibrations associated with money. The belief behind the practice is that by directing energy towards the doll, one can influence their financial situation and attract prosperity into their life. The concept of using dolls in magical practices has been around for centuries in various cultures and traditions. In the case of money voodoo dolls, the doll is typically created to resemble a person or a symbol associated with wealth. It can be made out of various materials such as cloth, clay, or even wax.
Magic Mike's Last Dance
“Magic” Mike Lane can’t stop bumping and grinding. He’s the male stripper version of a bank robber or cowboy who swears he’s retired but gets lured back into action for one last job. “Magic Mike’s Last Dance,” the third film starring Channing Tatum as a big-hearted, iron-thewed Florida stripper, knows that we know that Mike doesn’t feel truly fulfilled unless he’s dancing.
To its credit, Steven Soderbergh’s new movie gets the “I’m done, don’t ask me to dance” ritual out of the way in less than ten minutes. A brief prologue establishes that Mike lost his furniture business during the pandemic and works as a bartender at catered events in Miami. That’s where he meets Max (Salma Hayek Pinault), the estranged and wants-to-be-divorced wife of a London one-percenter. Max offers Mike an exorbitant sum for one last dance. After a brief pantomime of refusal, he agrees, and it’s such a mind-blowing experience for Max (the sex afterward is great, too) that she invites him to come with her to London and create and choreograph a stage production that will bring the Magic Mike experience to the West End. You know, the kind of thing that happens all the time.
AdvertisementThe rest of the movie is a backstage drama about Mike and Max learning how to be a couple as they collaborate on the show and try to stop it from getting shut down by Max’s husband for violating historic district architectural codes, etc. It’s all just a series of perfunctory roadblocks placed between Max and Mike’s inevitable and well-deserved happy endings as lovers and artistic collaborators.
"Magic Mike's Last Dance" is a patchwork that takes itself absolutely seriously as entertainment, but wears other ambitions lightly. There are dance numbers, romantic melodrama contrivances, and odd but intriguing 19th-century affectations (Max’s teenage daughter Zadie, played by Jemilia George, narrates Mike’s progress through London’s upper echelons as if reading from a 19th-century Edith Wharton-esque novel). Many scenes place the working-class-hero in situations where he’s out of his depth. Asked about his plans for Act Three, Mike says, “Uh, we’re doin’ it!”
As is often the case with Soderbergh, who’s been at the top of the directorial heap for over 20 years but retains a hustling gig-worker's point-of-view,“Magic Mike’s Last Dance” is more attentive to details of class difference than many Hollywood movies set in this environment would probably be. Sometimes the film will cut to Max’s butler Victor, played by Ayub Khan Din, when Max and Mike are discussing art, love, and happiness, as if to remind us that very few people get the time to talk about such matters without tedious everyday tasks fragmenting their attention.
Notice, too, how sensitively Tatum conveys Mike’s reactions to his sudden immersion into a new reality where he doesn’t have to struggle to survive. He seems excited but also wary as if expecting it all to evaporate like his furniture business. Tatum had a modest childhood in the American south and made it in Hollywood without rich or famous parents or preexisting industry connections. He has retained a smidge of “I can’t believe this is happening to me” energy, and he taps into it whenever he plays Mike, perhaps more so in this one. We understand why Mike would be discombobulated by the opportunities dropped in his lap. But we also understand that he’s the kind of guy who can adjust quickly because he’s spent most of his life catering to these sorts of people, and knows how to give them the fantasies they crave without surrendering too much of his soul.
AdvertisementThis film is a pretext for Tatum, Soderbergh, and screenwriter Reid Carolin (who wrote the previous two "Magic Mike" movies) to play around with a great character one more time without repeating themselves. After having previously given us, basically, “Saturday Night Fever With a Stripper, Combined with a Mentor-Whose-Pupil-Goes-Bad Film” (aka “Magic Mike”) and “Female Empowerment Fantasy and Male Bonding Comedy Disguised as a Comedic Road Movie with References To Apocalypse Now and The Odyssey” (aka “Magic Mike XXL”) they’ve made something else entirely: a film about desire, monogamous love, creativity, and freedom, but lightly so, never in a way that makes you roll your eyes. (Well, maybe a couple of times—mainly when characters repeat slogans about economic inequality simplistic enough to fit on a bumper sticker.)
At the same time, this is one of Soderbergh’s playfully referential entertainments. It’s not as deliberately abrasive and absurd as Soderbergh’s quasi-experimental comedy “Schizopolis” or as voluptuously show-offy as “Oceans 12” (the one in the franchise where Julia Roberts plays both her regular character and "Julia Roberts"). But it’s a movie about moviemaking, the artistic process, and all the various types of cinema and fiction it’s drawing on, as much as it’s about Mike and Max and the dance production. And it’s about the idea, exemplified by so many of Soderbergh’s projects, that a stylish diversion can still have substance. (“This show is not about getting dick,” Max tells their artistic team, then pauses for a nanosecond and adds, “Only.”)
None of it would work if Tatum weren’t every inch the movie star, and probably the last American-born A-list movie actor who can really, truly dance and gets occasional opportunities to prove it. He dances with his leading lady a couple of times here, but most of their tangos are emotional and intellectual, and the movie respects her ferocious energy and focus enough to let her take the spotlight often.
Nobody’s going to write thesis papers about the intricate architecture of this movie’s storytelling. It just goes where it needs to go or feels like going, much like the other two films, though in a different way. It all leads to the big show (another kind of movie-format cliche), and when the curtain finally goes up—revealing a cabaret-ish production that’s essentially the same one Tatum co-created that’s currently a smash in London, complete with audience participation—the movie cleverly finds ways to connect what’s happening onstage to what’s happening within Mike and Max.
AdvertisementMost of all, "Magic Mike's Last Dance" is about fit, graceful bodies moving through space. Whether the performers are dance-miming sex that would get the film an NC-17 rating if the actors weren’t clothed or performing a sort-of Bob Fosse-meets-”Singin’ in the Rain” routine onstage, or just walking and talking around London while coping with anxieties that will smother happiness if not held in check, Soderbergh and Tatum channel a primordial sense of why people love watching movies. Soderbergh often kids the Marvel films for being sexless, but you can tell by the way he shoots Mike and the other dancers that he knows this series is an R-rated wish-fulfillment fantasy for adults with libidos. Mike appears onstage in a flash of light, offering an instant escape to a universe of aesthetic and sexual bliss, but he never crosses boundaries without getting permission first. When it’s all over, he escorts the patron back to her seat and says thank you.
Now playing in theaters.
Matt Zoller Seitz
Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.
Magic Mike Fans Can't Help But Notice The Step Up Vibes In The Trailer For Magic Mike's Last Dance
Get your dollar bills ready, because we're getting a third and final "Magic Mike" movie: "Magic Mike's Last Dance." First reported by Deadline back in 2021, star Channing Tatum and director Steven Soderbergh are returning to round out the sexy trilogy.
Warner Bros. dropped the trailer for "Magic Mike's Last Dance" yesterday, giving fans a look at what to expect in the upcoming threequel. Following the events of "Magic Mike XXL," Mike (Tatum) has moved to Miami to continue his career as a stripper and is working as a bartender to make ends meet. He meets Salma Hayek's character, who convinces him to travel to London with her, planning a large-scale show that showcases Mike's true talents. From the trailer, fans get a good look at the event that Mike puts together, and it looks like a large, choreographed show filled with dancing and stripping.
Previous movies in the "Magic Mike" trilogy put the stripping front and center, as expected. "Magic Mike's Last Dance" looks to be taking a slightly different approach, featuring a lot of dancing. As a result, many fans are drawing comparisons to another film starring Channing Tatum, "Step Up."
It can be made out of various materials such as cloth, clay, or even wax. To activate the doll's magical properties, specific rituals and spells are performed. These rituals often involve chanting incantations, burning candles, and offering symbolic items such as coins or herbs.
Channing Tatum brings the Step Up dancing to Magic Mike
As mentioned above, the trailer for "Magic Mike's Last Dance" heavily features dancing, as opposed to the trilogy's usual strip dancing. Of course, that could be because Warner Bros. made the trailer for audiences of all ages to watch. The studio could be saving the hot action for when the movie hits theaters on Valentine's Day, but that didn't stop fans from making drawing comparisons to "Step Up."
The YouTube comments underneath the trailer pointed out how much "Magic Mike's Last Dance" looks like "Step Up," another film franchise made famous by Channing Tatum. One user, Mr. Midnight, said "Feels like 'Step Up/Magic Mike.' Good to see Channing showing us how talented he is on his feet." AC Wolf suggested, "[Last Dance] feels more like 'Step Up' than 'Magic Mike' . anyone else?" Telepek Telepkowy had a slightly more aggressive take, saying, "So, 'Step Up.' You're turning this into another 'Step Up' installment. Not the direction I thought this would go, but okay, I guess."
During an interview with People, Tatum revealed his goals for the upcoming movie. The actor, who recently returned to the industry, told the magazine, "I want [Magic Mike's Last Dance] to be the Super Bowl of stripping." Tatum revealed that he wanted the movie to focus more on the dancing, something he couldn't include in the previous installments. Judging by the trailer, he definitely got his wish.
"Magic Mike's Last Dance" hits theaters on February 10, 2023.
NYC's Leading Magician & Mentalist | Magic Mike Jacobson
| "COME. ON. My head hurts." -Anne Hathaway, Actress | "What? What! Whattttt? That was insanity." -Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors | "Come back here. I want you to perform for my mom." -J.J. Abrams, Director | "I've seen a lot of crazy things. That was crazier." -General David Petraeus, Former Head of the CIA | "I’m not sure what else to say besides that you are simply incredible." -Don Cheadle, Actor | "You're like a magician, but cooler." -Kelly Slater, pro-surfer
| "COME. ON. My head hurts." -Anne Hathaway, Actress | "What? What! Whattttt? That was insanity." -Kevin Durant, Golden State Warriors | "Come back here. I want you to perform for my mom." -J.J. Abrams, Director | "I've seen a lot of crazy things. That was crazier." -General David Petraeus, Former Head of the CIA | "I’m not sure what else to say besides that you are simply incredible." -Don Cheadle, Actor | "You're like a magician, but cooler." -Kelly Slater, pro-surfer
The practitioner may also infuse the doll with personal energy or attach items of personal significance to strengthen the connection between the doll and the intended outcome. Once the doll is activated, it is believed that it can be used in different ways to attract money and prosperity. Some practitioners may carry the doll with them or place it in a prominent location in their home or workplace. Others may use the doll in visualization exercises or meditations to help them focus their intention on manifesting financial abundance. It's important to note that the effectiveness and success of money voodoo dolls ultimately depend on the individual's belief and intention. Similar to other forms of magic, one's mindset and faith play a significant role in the outcome of these practices. Additionally, it's crucial to approach money voodoo dolls with ethical considerations, ensuring that one's actions align with the principles of integrity and respect for others. In conclusion, money voodoo dolls are a unique and intriguing aspect of magical practices related to attracting wealth. While they may not be everyone's cup of tea, for those who believe in the power of energy and intention, these dolls can serve as a tool for manifesting financial abundance and prosperity in their lives. As with any magical practice, it's essential to approach money voodoo dolls with an open mind, respect, and a strong sense of personal ethics..
Reviews for "How to Use Money Voodoo Dokl to Attract Money and Success"
1. Lisa - 2 stars
I was really disappointed with "Money voodoo dokl". The story was poorly developed and lacked any depth. The characters felt one-dimensional and the dialogue was unrealistic. I found it hard to connect with any of the characters, making it difficult to fully engage with the story. The pacing was also off, with moments of slow build-up and then rushed conclusions. Overall, I couldn't get into the book and would not recommend it.
2. Mike - 1 star
"Money voodoo dokl" was a complete waste of my time. The plot was confusing and hard to follow, leaving me frustrated and disinterested. The writing style was also poor, with clumsy descriptions and repetitive phrases. The characters were forgettable and lacked any real development, making it difficult to care about their struggles. Additionally, there were several grammatical and spelling errors throughout the book, which further distracted from the already lacking story. I would not recommend this book to anyone.
3. Amanda - 2 stars
I had high hopes for "Money voodoo dokl" based on the intriguing premise, but unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations. The pacing was incredibly slow, and the story felt dragged out unnecessarily. The writing style was detached and lacked emotion, making it hard for me to connect with the characters. The dialogue was also stilted and unrealistic, taking away from the authenticity of the story. Overall, I found it difficult to stay engaged and was left feeling disappointed by the book.