Remember that scene in Disney’s animated Fantasia when Mickey Mouse, as an apprentice to the sorcerer Yen Sid (that's Disney spelled backward), stole his master's hat and made brooms dance? That scene is a classic. Now producer Jerry Bruckheimer has fashioned a live-action epic around that moment with Nicolas Cage as the wizard and Jay Baruchel as the apprentice. It would be a gross understatement to note that something is lost in translation. Everything is lost — style, substance, wit, character, logic. I could go on. Cage and Baruchel work hard to stay accessible, but the computer-generated effects come on like heavy artillery blowing away any hint of flesh and blood. The Sorcerer's Apprentice should be rated U for Untouched by Human Hands.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.