CONTENT WARNING PROFANITY ^

OK I love going to Thrift Stores on occasion. You find a lot of weird random (and sometimes cool) stuff there. Certainly it was a lot funner to go thrifting back in the 90s, as eBay has killed most hopes of finding anything valuable.. but you can still find some downright weird stuff.

Like today, I was scrolling through the CDs and came across a Joe Pesci CD. Now, it wasn't a soundtrack, it was an actual musical album - ie Joe Pesci was singing. What the hell? When did this happen? Who thought this was a good idea? I tried to resist, but for $1.06 my curiosity was too high.

So now that I've actually heard a few tracks I can say i'm still a bit confused. Apparently the intended hit of the album is a track called  Yo cousin vinny. Joe must have been particularly proud of it as it received it's own sticker on the front of the case proudly proclaiming it's inclusion in this disc as well as no less than three versions on the CD (one in English, Itallian and Spanish - just in case). The actual song? As one would expect not much more than the lame reference to My Cousin Vinny that the title would indicate. It's so full of lame jokes and bad Joe Pesci singing I'm not sure what to make of it as its not really good nor is it really funny bad, it's just bad.

Then when you think it can't get any stranger, Pesci busts out a rap to the tune of Blondies Rapture. I can't tell if this is serious or not, I can only imagine it's meant to be comical maybe a spoof? But it's not really funny.

The rest of the album is a mixture of genres in which Joe Pesci sorta rambles through mostly just muttering profanities. There's even a F-word laden Christmas song just in case you need a little Pesci at the Holidays. The final cut is a version of Louis Armstrongs What a wonderful world that sounds like a lost track from that album William Shatner unfortunately made back in the 70s.

So the question remains - how the hell did this come about? What drunken dinner party somehow sprung this idea that still seemed workable days (and weeks) later while it was presumably being produced? Didn't somebody stop to think what an awful idea this sort of thing would be? Who was the target audience? Middle Aged Italians that thought Joe Pesci belting out profanities was hilarious? Well worth the buck just for the sheer strangeness of it all. Can't wait to bring this out at the next party.

We have added a new section of Flash Games courtesy of Mochigames. The games themselves run all the popular genres. Everything is flash based and will run in your browser. There are some ads while the games are loading, but nothing too horrible and they stop once the game has started.

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The Nigerian film board might have some competition on it's hands.

After some fairly large recent successes, it's no wonder Disney continues to milk it's vaults for new movies. Hoping to ignite another Pirates franchise, this summer brings us - The Sorcerers Apprentice. The story itself only pays a brief homage to the sequence from Fantasia, instead focusing on some thousand year old Wizard feuds, Merlin and a variety of other magical cliches. Nicholas Cage plays the good Wizard Balthazar, who is seeking Merlins heir, as only he can defeat the evil Morgana (whatever.). This heir is found in the reluctant hero Dave played awkwardly by Jay Baruchel (Fanboys). Alfred Molina (Doc Ock) plays the main villian - Maxim - the evil counterpart to Cage.

The setup is pretty standard and at no point does is attempt to break free of the sheer and utter haze of predictability that surrounds it. There are a number of subplots as Dave is reintroduced to his high school crush all the while trying to learn all this magic stuff from Nicholas Cage - it all plays out exactly like you would expect. The story plods along and while there are a few fun moments from time to time nothing really stands out. The unimaginative writing and poor dialogue only shows that this script either some more work, or at least some passion. Nicholas Cage does the best he can, but he can't really rise about the material. The rest of the cast is OK, but nobody really shines. Jay Baruchel's Apprentice never really inspires confidences or even sympathy as his character is simply two shallow. Alfred Molina is never really threatening either and is mostly forgettable.

So what transpires is 111 minutes of fairly predictable popcorn action that never really gels. There are plenty of CGI-Laden action sequences, but the magic in this world is fairly generic and undefined. There doesn't seem to be any ground rules and magic can take any form at any time - assuming theres still money in the CGI budget. This makes for some neat effects, but it all seems rather hollow. With so many other fantasy series out there with deep well thought out magical worlds, it's hard to get into something that is so unimaginative.

Overall it's not horrible. It does run about 20-30 minutes too long, but never grinds to a screeching halt. There are a few scenes that work and some of the CGI is neat if only on the surface. Certainly this is no Pirates of the Carribean, but then again it's not as bad as the Pirates Sequels either, so it could be worse. Probably best to save this one for Netflix.

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