'Cats & Dogs' sequel is one bad dog

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• Summer box office looks bigger in 3-D

  Summer box office looks bigger in 3-D

  Fewer paying customers showed up for this summer's movies than in any summer since 1997, but Hollywood still raked in record receipts of $4.35 billion. The answer to this seeming contradiction: 3-D.

  Thanks largely to higher admission prices for 3-D presentations, revenue rose a projected 2 percent from summer 2009, even while the estimated number of tickets sold dropped 3 percent from last year to 552 million, according to Hollywood.com, which tracks box-office numbers. The figures are closely monitored in the film industry, which typically draws about 40 percent of its annual theatrical revenue from the first weekend of May through Labor Day.

  The summer's top-grossing film, "Toy Story 3" from Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Studios, drew more than half its receipts from 3-D showings, and four of the top 10 box-office earners were in 3-D.

• Actors' voices convey everything

  Actors' voices convey everything

  LOS ANGELES -- "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore" actors Bette Midler, Christina Applegate and James Marsden explain what it was like recording the voices for their characters.

  Bette Midler, who provides the voice of the central villain Kitty Galore, found all the years she spent in a recording studio made the process easier.

  "There are some parts that are quite musical. Timing is quite important in this kind of work. The phrasing works with the mouth of the character and that is musical. If you listen, you can hear where the beats are skipped, where you drop a beat or where you rush and catch up a little bit. The fact I've sung for a long time really, really helped a lot with that."

• Hollywood Notebook: DiCaprio, Wahlberg

  Hollywood Notebook: DiCaprio, Wahlberg

  Rick Bentley is a regular guy who, as The Bee's entertainment reporter for the past 12 years, has rubbed elbows with Hollywood stars. So what's it really like sitting across from today's hottest actors? Here's a peek inside Rick's Hollywood notebook:

  Most interviews for new movies take place in Los Angeles hotels. So it's never a surprise to end up in an elevator with a celebrity and a gaggle of publicists. Is it gaggle? Maybe a group of publicists should be called a pack.

  I was joined on an elevator at the Four Seasons by Elizabeth Reaser , who plays Esme Cullen in the "Twilight" movies, and who was dressed in an extremely fitted dress.

• Capsule reviews of feature films

  Capsule reviews of feature films

  AGORA 2 1/2 stars. Rachel Weisz stars as the philosopher/astronomer Hypatia in this vivid historical drama set in Roman Egypt of the late 4th century, where religious tumult and ideological zealotry ruled. (What else is new?) 2 hrs. No MPAA rating (violence, adult themes) - Steven Rea

  CATS AND DOGS: THE REVENGE OF KITTY GALORE 1 1/2 stars. The belated and entirely uncalled-for sequel to the 2001 kid comed, with canines and felines moving their mouths while actors like Bette Midler and Nick Nolte spout juvenile James Bond pariody babble. Parents can compound the headache-inducing experience by paying extra bucks for the 3-D version. 1 hr. 22 PG (action, cartoon violence) - Steven Rea

  CHARLIE ST. CLOUD 2 1/2 stars. Enjoyably moist ghost story starring Zac Efron as a high-school hotshot haunted by an error of judgment and learning to move past grief into acceptance. 1 hr. 39 PG-13 (sexual references, intense accident) - Carrie Rickey

• Capsule reviews of feature films

  Capsule reviews of feature films

  AGORA 2 1/2 stars. Rachel Weisz stars as the philosopher/astronomer Hypatia in this vivid historical drama set in Roman Egypt of the late 4th century, where religious tumult and ideological zealotry ruled. (What else is new?) 2 hrs. No MPAA rating (violence, adult themes) - Steven Rea

  ANIMAL KINGDOM 3 1/2 stars. A razor-sharp Australian gangland drama, about a suddenly orphaned teen who moves in with his three drug-dealing, gun-toting uncles and their wily, seemingly warm-hearted mother. Deep, dark business ensues. With Guy Pearce as a police detective, and a chilling Jacki Weaver as the protective matriarch. 1 hr. 52 R (violence, drugs, profanity, adult themes) - Steven Rea

  CAIRO TIME 3 1/2 stars. Patricia Clarkson, as a New York magazine editor, and Alexander Siddig, as a charming native, star in this bittersweet and achingly beautiful story of two strangers who spend a few days together in the teeming Egyptian city and find themselves falling in love - perhaps. 1 hr. 29 PG (adult themes) -