I grew up reading Charlotte's Web and watching Mister Ed and the Francis (the Talking Mule, with Donald O'Connor) movies on TV, so I have a very warm spot in my heart for talking animals. They can inspire wondrous flights of fantasy, lift the spirits with good-natured humor, and lead to a deep and abiding respect for nature and the environment.

Of course, watching the Yogi Bear cartoons once made me think I could take on a black bear foraging for food at our family's camping site in Yellowstone National Park -- I was six years old and had to be physically restrained -- so I can see the down side as well. Still, dozens of animated films have made it abundantly clear that it's possible to lend human voices to the animal kingdom without dumbing the material down to idiocy and, when done right (Babe, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, Joe's Apartment), live-action talking animals also deserve to be a treasured part of our cinematic heritage.

But not these. Here are seven (mostly) live-action movies featuring talking animals that attack our sense of what makes a movie good.

7. Underdog (2007)

When Hollywood screws around with my cherished childhood memories, I strain to give them the benefit of the doubt. There's no excuse, though, for this abomination of a movie. I realize that Wally Cox's dweeby voice would be impossible for someone else to replicate, but Jason Lee? Really?! A huge chunk of the original cartoon's charm was the very simple (cheap) animation, which relied upon the writers to come up with witty things for the actors to say. None of that was transplanted to the live-action movie and I can't imagine any children looking back fondly upon this version of Underdog in the future.

On a day like today, when it's cold and hailing in the city, I wish that it was Groundhog Day already. I wish that little Punxsutawney Phil would come out, not see his shadow, and Springtime weather would be imminent. But it's not even technically winter yet, and so I'm just sitting here listening to the ice bricks hitting my porch, glad that I don't have to really leave my apartment today. Now all I need is a good movie to watch, and what better movie to watch when it's icy outside than Groundhog Day? Unfortunately, all we're stuck with currently is the same old special edition DVD version we've had for the last five years. Now I'm at least wishing that it was January 29, 2008, the date that a new 15th Anniversary edition of Groundhog Day comes out on disc.

Never mind that the fact Groundhog Day is 15 years old makes me feel old, this is exciting news. Groundhog Day is one of the best movies of the '90s, let alone best comedies of the '90s, let alone best Bill Murray comedies of the '90s. And this new DVD features some great bonus material, including "newly discovered" deleted scenes. I'm not one for always watching deleted scenes (they're cut out for a reason, right?), but I'll definitely be checking these out -- especially if they feature my beloved Stephen Tobolowsky. Also, director Harold Ramis has supervised a digital remaster of the film and recorded a commentary. And of course, it comes just in time for a marathon viewing (haven't you ever appropriately watched it on repeat for a whole day?) on Groundhog Day.

Well, it might not be the best idea for a video game movie I've heard lately, but I will say this: at least it's better than Joust. Variety reports that The Animation Picture Co. has optioned the rights to an animated big-screen version of the Vivendi platform game, Spyro the Dragon. The best-selling game (from a franchise that has earned over $50 million dollars over the years) centered on a winged purple dragon that suffered from the usual hassles of any platform game protagonist -- collecting gems, evil sorcerers; you know, just another day at the office. A director has not been chosen yet, but Steve and Dan Altiere (Dr. Doolittle 4) have already been hired to write a script. The story will be based on the recently re-launched Legend of Spyro trilogy.

The first installment was released back in 1998 and has spawned numerous sequels. Some extra fun facts for game aficionados out there: Stewart Copeland of The Police fame was responsible for the first game's soundtrack and Gary Oldman provided voice talent for The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning back in '06 (what did we ever do without Wikipedia?). I remember playing Spyro a few times and the most I can remember is this: collect coin, jump, fly, collect egg, double jump -- not exactly the makings of a tale of epic sacrifice. I can only assume that this will be a kid's movie, considering who is already involved. Plus, it's not like we are dealing with battles and high body counts; he is just a little purple dragon after all. APC have just finished (inexplicably, I might add) a Garfield movie with creator Jim Davies (Garfield Gets Real) and have already lined up another one (Garfield's Fun Fest) before heading off to start production on Spyro.

Oftentimes Hollywood's lack of originality leads to overexposed trends. Remember when every action movie seemed to be easily defined as 'Die Hard on a ...'? Remember when disaster movies were all the rage? And then twenty years later when they were all the rage again? Remember when there were like a hundred body-swapping comedies? Well, there appear to be fewer trends these days, or maybe it's just that Hollywood turns trends into full-blown practices, as in the case of sequels, comic book movies and fantasy films based on literary franchises. Nowadays even a promised trend, like the one involving religious Passion of the Christ copycats, isn't necessarily going to happen. But despite there being so few here-today-gone-tomorrow film fads, there's at least seven bad ideas currently in vogue in Tinsel Town, and all of them need to disappear soon, lest they too become permanent.

1. Torture Porn

I'm going to start with an easy, surely obvious one. Torture porn is the latest trend in horror, a genre that changes its predominant style every few years, and it may be the most despised -- at least by us non-horror junkies. I miss the days when a friend, an actual junkie, could drag me to a harmless scary movie that provided a few screams, a few laughs and afterward, at the most, a few silly nightmares. Now, with each new horror movie there's promise of a seriously depressing experience. After watching The Hills Have Eyes, I realized I hadn't been frightened at all. Instead I wanted to cry my heart out. I haven't been to a horror flick since, and my friend is going solo. Sure, I hear that Eli Roth's movies are a lot more enjoyable than watching a young woman raped while watching her father burned alive and her mother raped and then shot in the head, but I just haven't been in the mood to find out.

Apparently the torture porn trend is already on its way out. Hostel II performed poorly at the box office and Captivity may have peaked too soon, reaching maximum tastelessness before even opening in theaters. So what will be next? I'm rather looking forward to when slasher movies are in fashion again, when I can delight in seeing sinful human beings killed off quickly and deservedly by an implausible maniac. Which brings me to the next trend ...

This week four new releases, though they all did ok business, were nevertheless unable to surpass Pixar's Cars, which became the first movie in a long damn time to hold onto the top spot in the weekend box office race. Cars, which experienced a (totally normal, though perhaps not for Pixar films) drop of about 48% from its opening returns, took in an estimated $31.2 million from almost 4000 screens. Roaring into the second spot with his fake accent and stretchy pants was Jack Black, whose Nacho Libre made a respectable $27.5 million; on almost exactly the same number of screens (around 3000), The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift made about $24.1 million, good enough for third place. The weekend's other two debuts, The Lake House and Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties, finished in the fourth and sixth spots respectively.

Interestingly, The Break-Up continues to do fairly strong business, finishing fifth for the weekend and running its total domestic earnings to just over $91 million. Since the movie cost $52 million to make, I think it's safe to say the folks at Universal are very pleased with their weird relationship movie and its tabloid-magnet stars. On the other side of the coin is WB's sad, sad Poseidon. After a month and a half in release, it's made about $56 million, barely a third of its reported budget. Dear me.

As you know, full numbers are after the jump.

A couple weeks ago I pondered the question: does the opinion of a bunch of white film critics matter when it comes to a film like Madea's Family Reunion? Three weeks of box office later, the numbers tell me the answer is a resounding, "Hell, no!" To date, Madea has raked in an impressive $60 mill at the box office (although this week there was a serious drop off - the film only made $5 million in the last week), off an estimated budget of $6 million. Pretty darn impressive take for a film that has a less-than-impressive 30% over at Rotten Tomatoes. The film's success pretty much guarantees we'll be seeing a lot more Madea, and Tyler Perry, no doubt, is chuckling all the way to the bank. Big Momma's House and Big Momma's House 2, which also targeted primarily African-American audiences, also ripped up the box office in spite of being panned by critics. The original Big Momma, with an RT score of 30%, took in $117.5 million off a $30 million budget. Big Momma 2, with a dismal 6% over at RT, still managed to make a $27 million profit ($67 million on a $40 million budget).

If the success of Madea  and the Big Momma films are flukes, it would be one thing, but they aren't. Year after year critics and movie fans alike bitch and moan about how much crap comes out of Hollywood, and year after year the critics try their darndest to point audiences to what they consider to be good, even great films, only to watch, befuddled, as audiences flock to the dreck with relentless tenacity. Hollywood, meanwhile, continues to churn out heaps of mediocre (or worse) films, because all too often, mediocrity is what brings in the bank, and it takes lots of cash to support Hollywood in the opulent lifestyle to which it's become accustomed.

I Know What Jennifer Love Hewitt Did This Summer -- she suffered a mild concussion, irked some neighbors and further contributed to A Stupider World. On Tuesday, August 22, the 26-year-old cutie was somehow hit in the head with a heavy chair during a table reading of her new show, "Ghost Whisperer". She made news earlier this summer when some sort of ruckus broke out during a Hollywood Hills photo shoot when a neighbor complained of light pollution (no charges were ultimately filed). Hewitt recently signed on for the superfluous sequel, Garfield 2: Your Morbidly Obese Cat Has Suffered A Stroke, Mr. Arbuckle.