He-Man fans have been jerked around for a long time -- pretty much since day one, in fact. They grew to love the early '80s toy line and cartoon despite conflicting backstories, then were rewarded with a fairly ridiculous live-action movie in 1987. Toymaker Mattel's attempt to remake it as a BSG-style sci-fi epic in 1990 was a failure on multiple levels, while its creatively successful 2002 revamp was merely a failure at retail and was prematurely canceled. Last week, fans were anticipating both a new live-action movie from Warner Bros. as well as a new, classically styled toy line; this week, they'll have to content themselves with the toys, because the movie is apparently deader than King Grayskull. ...If you didn't get that reference, then you probably don't care either way.

With Josh Brolin getting a lot of press lately for playing a letter of the alphabet and signing on to play Jonah Hex, I naturally wondered when someone would pounce to make a sequel his first big movie, The Goonies. As it turns out, Richard Donner -- who directed the 1985 hit about a motley crew of adventurous kids -- had already been working on a follow-up. Sadly, sequels just don't seem to be happening for Donner lately, and even with Steven Spielberg enthusiastically on his side, things just didn't quite come together, according to Variety. Goonies never say die, though, so Donner is working hard to make sure they'll live on... in a Broadway musical.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua stayed atop the box office for the second week in a row. Apocalypse to follow, but not before we see more movies about talking dogs and the 'hoods from whence they came. You know how Hollywood works: If a movie makes money, they make 50 clones of it. So I invite you to play the Location Movie Dog game with me. Take a city or town, add a dog breed and voila! You have a multi-million dollar grossing movie. The title alone causes the script to write itself. The winner gets a contract at Disney and a free copy of that CGI mouth-moving software, the one that makes the baby on those E-trade commercials look like the Anti-Christ. Here are my game submissions.

What would Jim Henson think? The company that bears his name is making a Muppet movie for adults. I guess we all have to grow up sometime, but it raises several questions: Does this mean we'll finally get to see what the Great Gonzo does with those chickens? Will Fozzie Bear show us his "wakka-wakka," and will it be funnier than his jokes? Will we discover Bert and Ernie's Rainbow Connection, and will Kermit be depicted putting his pointy lips on some pork loin? Unfortunately, the answer is no. This is not Sesame Street After Dark; instead The Jim Henson company is making a film noir featuring puppets. Somewhere Raymond Chandler is going "What da EFF?!!!"

If you 've ever wondered why so much of the world hates America, we now have an answer: Beverly Hills Chihuahua held tight to its number 1 position at the box office for a second weekend in a row, despite four new movies opening in wide release. It brought in $17.5 million for a $52.5 million total after two weeks. I wanted to take solace in the fact that it opened on a lot of screens (3,218), so it 's per-screen take might not be as great as some other movies. But only one movie in the top 10 has a higher per-screen take than Chihuahua 's $5,442 per screen.

Rodents are very resourceful. They can make a meal out of nearly anything when they have to. They can adapt to almost any environment. They have teeth that continually grow, allowing them to gnaw away at tough things without permanent damage to their biting power. It's fitting, then, that Disney's main mascot is a mouse. Sure, this one wears bright red shorts and dapper white gloves, but don't let the civilized exterior fool you. Mickey's seemingly shy demeanor belies a highly adaptable critter who's not afraid to strike out into new territory when he sees an opportunity. This time, the opportunity lies in the Middle East, with its 200-million-strong youth market, according to Variety.

I would like to think someone made a mistake in tallying the box office results this week, because the news that Beverly Hills Chihuahua was the top movie of the week depleted any little faith I might have still had in this country's taste. I know I can just use the excuse of, "It's a kids' movie. Kids will go see almost anything." But then I also have to realize that someone usually takes them to, or at least pays for, their movies. So that means adults contributed to and approved of this box office win. At any rate, it brought in $29 million for its first weekend. Granted, it was on a bazillion (3,215, to be exact) screens, but still. This is just not okay.

I am officially declaring today Talking Animals Day. Among the other gabby movie animals in the news today, it seems hungry bears have also stumbled into today's headlines in a big way: pop culture's oldest, Yogi Bear, and newest, Po, will both be heading to the big screen. True, we reported back in August that DreamWorks Animation was planning a sequel to the overwhelmingly successful Kung Fu Panda, but it was announced today that both Jack Black and Angelina Jolie among other original cast members, would be coming back. The original film's writers Jonathan Aibel and Glenn Berger have also signed on for the sequel, which will be directed by the original's head of story, Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The sequel, to be released in 2011, will follow panda bear Po, the world's biggest kung fu fan, as he continues his journey as the chosen one who fulfills an ancient prophecy while mastering the art of kung fu. And also, no doubt, eating all of Monkey's cookies along the way.

For those of you out there that don't find the animation (mouth-talking, eye-bugging) of live-action animals super creepy, good news: Cats & Dogs, the 2001 flick that saw the merging of live-action animals and people with animation to tell the realistic tale of the high-tech espionage war going on between cats and dogs, is about to get a sequel. For the rest of us, we can at least be more vigilant about avoiding both Duke from those Bush's Baked Beans commercials and the upcoming trailers for Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore. I remember when the trailer for Beverly Hills Chihuahua snuck up on me, and I almost had to go into therapy.

According to that cartoon, All Dogs Go To Heaven. A much hotter fate may befall Beverly Hills Chihuahua, the latest in a series of talking animal movies begat by original white rapper Rex Harrison's Doctor Dolittle. EW thinks the movie will survive the critical drubbing it will receive to become the surprise hit of the fall. I think EW is, to quote Big Daddy Kane, on dope or dog food. Voiced by Drew Barrymore, the BHC gets lost in Mexico and has adventures with a bunch of other dogs voiced by Latino actors like Paul Rodriguez and George Lopez. All of whom try to mount the rich bitch at some point -- oh wait, this is a Disney picture. I meant to say "all of whom just fart and say curses."