
Always Amazing
John Szeles built a career as the Amazing Johnathan, a shock-comedy magician known for gags involving fake blood and self-inflicted stunts, before a heart condition diagnosis in 2014 gave him what doctors said was a year to live. Years later he is still alive, and this film follows him as he decides to return to the stage rather than fade out quietly. Interviews with Johnathan, his wife Anastasia, and fellow comedians and magicians trace the arc from diagnosis through retirement announcements, relapses, and the strange position of outliving his own farewell tour. The film catches the tension in his marriage and his health as he pushes his failing body through rehearsals and live shows, chasing one more real performance instead of a scripted goodbye. It sits alongside the more famous HBO project about the same period, but keeps its focus on Johnathan's own account of what it means to keep working when the exit was supposed to have already happened.