In The Blind Side, Quinton Aaron stars as Michael Oher, a young man born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee to a crack addict mother and a father who disappeared soon after his birth. He grew up moving from school to school, at times homeless and extremely uneducated. At the age of 18, despite his dreadful situation, Oher was admitted into a private school when the coach of the football team took note of his 6′4″ 300 lb. frame. A couple with a daughter and son who attended the same school also became familiar with Oher and he was subsequently invited to stay one night at their lavish Memphis home. Somehow that night turned into legal adoptation (not right away but down the road). The Tuohy’s treated Michael like a son, giving him a bedroom, buying him clothes, encouraging his growth in football and connecting him with a tutor to help with his studies. The tutor helped — Oher was able to improve his grade point average from 0.9 to 2.52. Joining the football team helped too — Oher went on to play for the University of Mississippi and eventually became a first round pick of the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens. The boy who grew up uneducated, homeless and with no family is now the starting offensive right tackle for the Ravens. He has also recently signed a 5-year, $13.8 million dollar contract. Not too shabby if you ask me.

The Blind Side tells us the remarkable story of Michael Oher, with a little Hollywood added into the mix. Besides Quinton Aaron, the movie also stars Sandra Bullock, Tim McGraw and Kathy Bates and features appearances by Nick Saban, Lou Holtz and a handful of other U.S. college football coaches with whom I have to admit, I am not too familiar.

This is the second underdog sports movie based on a true story that has been directed by John Lee Hancock. In 2002 he gave us The Rookie, starring Dennis Quaid and based on the story of Jim Morris, a 35-year old high school coach who tried out for Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Devil Rays and ended up making the team. I remember seeing that movie and thinking it was an inspiring story but the movie was just okay.

I pretty much felt the same way after seeing The Blind Side — the story itself is quite remarkable but the movie is just okay. I’ve read insinuations online that Sandra Bullock delivers an Oscar-worthy performance as the headstrong Leigh Anne Tuohy but there is no way she will even get consideration. I like Bullock as an actress but there was nothing special with what she did in this movie. The same can be said for the entire cast. No one sets the world on fire. I’m sure Quinton Aaron does a fine job at portraying what Michael Oher was really like as a young man but most of his time is spent not saying anything. Considering the movie is about Oher, we actually learn very little about the person himself. Jae Head, the young boy who plays S.J. Tuohy, is one of the most annoying little buggers I have seen in a movie in a long time. I’m sure if Lou Holtz was sitting in a room with Michael Oher trying to convince him to attend South Carolina and S.J. Tuohy was piping in that part of the deal would be for S.J. to run on the field with the team, I would guess that Mr. Holtz would probably be in jail right now for first-degree murder. You know how sometimes in a movie a giant will sit down and discover later that he unknowingly sat on a cat? I was hoping Michael Oher would do that to S.J….

Even as a sports movie, there really is very little sport in the film. The movie runs around 2 hours and out of that, there might be around 20 minutes of actual football — maybe less. During that 2 hours, it does seem to drag at times. Perhaps a little editing could have done the movie some good. Some of that S.J. stuff could have hit the editing room floor. Like the scenes with him teaching Oher how to play football — pretty painful to watch if you ask me. It was almost like an extended commercial for Under Armour.

In the end, although I find the Michael Oher story to be nothing short of phenomenal, The Blind Side just adds a bit too much of the Hollywood formula to it. Some of the lines you may hear throughout the movie are your typical Hollywood lines. Some of the characters are the typical Hollywood stock characters — like the redneck Southern football fan or the Memphis-belle socialite. Picture how you think they would look and what you think they would say and that is exactly how it is in the movie.

Is it possible that Leigh Anne Tuohy walked onto a high school practice field and basically took over the football team for a brief moment in time? Did this same woman really drive into the projects of Memphis and tell a gun-toting gangster that he better not cross into her side of town? Did a 12-year old S.J. Tuohy really sit in negotiations with Nick Saban and Lou Holtz and lay out how things were going to be between the college and Michael Oher? Do they really serve popcorn and soda at a girls high school volleyball game? I don’t know how any of this could be even remotely true. It was all just too nice and cute for me. Besides all that, it seemed to me that the Michael Oher story had very little of Michael Oher. Sure he was on the screen for about 90% of the movie but how did he feel about his life at the time? What was Michael thinking? The Blind Side didn’t do a good job of letting us know. There wasn’t enough depth to the most important character. As I said before, it’s a great story. The only problem with this movie is it only does an okay job of telling it. (6.5 out of 10)

Synopsis: It’s the 21st century, but the gods of Mount Olympus and assorted monsters have walked out of the pages of high school student Percy Jackson’s Greek mythology texts and into his life. And they’re not happy: Zeus’ lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Even more troubling is the sudden disappearance of Percy’s mother. As Percy adapts to his newly discovered status as a demi-god (his father is Poseidon), he finds himself caught between the battling titans of Mt. Olympus. He and his friends embark on a cross-country adventure to catch the true lightning thief, save Percy’s mom, and unravel a mystery more powerful than the gods themselves.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief opens February 12, 2010.

The role in question is that of Felicia Hardy/Black Cat. Hathaway joins a list that over the last couple of weeks has included the likes of Rachel McAdams, Romola Garai and Julia Stiles. No word on exactly how the character will play into the story, but from what I’ve read it seems that in the movie, Black Cat’s father will run the Daily Bugle. She’ll start out as a hero, but when something happens to him, she turns villain. Of course, this is all speculation, but it seems pretty certain at this point that Black Cat WILL be in the movie.

Spider-Man 4, directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire, will supposedly begin production early next year for a Summer 2011 release.

The story follows 15-year-old twins Sophie and Josh as they pursue adventure across several continents with the immortal alchemist Nicholas Flamel. For those of you thinking Flamel sounds familiar, you may recognize the name from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. BUT, Flamel is/was an actual person who was born in 1330 and supposedly died in 1418. From what I understand, Flamel, along with his wife wife, decoded a mysterious 21-page book which allowed them to replicate a recipe for the Philosopher’s Stone which turns lead into gold. Depending on whether or not you believe it, they also succeeded in achieving immortality. If you want to read more, check out Flamel’s Wikipedia entry. There you’ll see Flamel linked to the likes of Harry Potter, The Da Vinci Code and even Indiana Jones.

The first 3 books in the series are currently in print. A fourth book is scheduled to be published in May.

According to Mania.com, Sam Worthington will star The Last Days of American Crime based on the forthcoming comic from Radical Publishing. The news was revealed by comic creator Rick Remender.

The story is described as a heist thriller told against a sci fi backdrop. In a near-future America, news has broken that, in a matter of weeks, the government is set to roll out mind-control technology that will kill the criminal impulse in all citizens. Chaos descends on America’s cities as the country braces for the new order. Career criminal Graham Brick is forced to accelerate the heist of his career with an untested new crew in order to beat the deadline. Sounds interesting. Remender will write the screenplay. He wrote the comic which was illustrated by Greg Tocchini. The first issue will be available in stores in December.

Worthington stars next month in James Cameron’s Avatar.

The comedy is being described as a road trip movie through New York featuring talking animals. At least he’s branching out and trying new things — if you forget about Dr. Dolittle and Dr. Dolittle 2 — which really isn’t that difficult to do. Then again, he also voiced a talking donkey in the Shrek movies. So much for trying out new things. On the plus side, The Hollywood Reporter referred to the project as an R-rated comedy, so maybe there’s still hope. Sam Pitman and Adam Cole-Kelly will write the script.

Speaking of Eddie Murphy, he’s also in the news today in an article at Forbes listing Hollywood’s 10 Most Overpaid Stars. Murphy lands at #4 on the list behind Billy Bob Thornton, Ewan McGregor and Will Ferrell who tops the list — which isn’t surprising considering how poorly Land of the Lost opened earlier this year. Visit Forbes to check out the rest of the list.

Even though it’s at least a year away from being filmed and there’s no director and no script, it’s time for the Star Trek 2 rumours to start hitting the ‘net.

The first comes from ComingSoon.net, which claims that an actor is already being targetted to play Khan, should he be the villain in the next movie. That actor is Nestor Carbonell.

Who is Nestor Carbonell you may ask? Well, if you asked me that question 2 hours ago, I wouldn’t have known who the hell you were talking about but I have now learned that the man known to me and millions of other Lost fans around the world as the mysterious and ageless Richard Alpert on the hit tv show is, in fact, Nestor Carbonell.

Carbonell does resemble, in some ways, a young Ricardo Montalban/Khan. Being on Lost, he certainly has a close connection with J.J. Abrams.

For now, we’ll treat this purely as internet craziness but it sure is an interesting idea that makes sense.

It should also be noted that SlashFilm.com picked up on a story that revealed two veteran editors have been hired to work on the movie. Mark Goldblatt, whose resume includes Halloween II, Terminator 1 & 2, True Lies, Armageddon and Bad Boys II; and Walter Murch, who has worked on The Godfather: Part II, Apocalypse Now, Ghost, The Talented Mr. Ripley and Jarhead – will lend their expertise to The Wolfman. Let’s hope they can work with director Joe Johnston and help put together an excellent movie.

The Wolfman will be in theatres on February 10, 2010.

In what was pretty much an inevitable move, it looks like the word “Dicks” has officially been dropped from the title of Kevin Smith’s next movie. For the last few months, we have referred to the movie as A Couple of Dicks but after reading a review on AintItCool.com tonight, I noticed right away that the reviewer referred to the movie as A Couple of Cops. I’m sure I heard an interview recently where Smith himself said that he wouldn’t be surprised if the title was changed in order to market the movie properly.

A Couple of Cops stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as two cops trying to recover a stolen 1952 Andy Pafko baseball card. Also appearing in the film will be Michelle Tratchtenberg, Adam Brody, Seann William Scott, Jason Lee and Kevin Pollack.

For the record, the person who saw the movie at a test screening says, and I quote, it “ROCKED“.

A Couple of Cops will be in theatres on February 26, 2010.

I was expecting this preview to be all about Miley Cyrus, but was actually surprised that it isn’t. Instead, it seems to focus more on the Greg Kinnear character and his relationship as a father and ex-husband. Although I’m sure as the movie comes closer to release, that Miley Cyrus’ name will be featured more prominently in order to sell tickets. (No disrespect because I like the guy, but when was the last time you bought a movie ticket to see Greg Kinnear?) Check out the video below.

The Last Song opens April 2, 2010.

Director Kenneth Branagh is putting the final touches on the cast for Thor, which will begin production in January in Los Angeles and shoot in Santa Fe, New Mexico beginning in March until late April.

With a cast that already includes Chris Hemsworth as Thor, Anthony Hopkins as his father Odin, Natalie Portman as nurse Jane Foster, Jaimie Alexander as the Asgardian warrior Sif, Tom Hiddleston as the villain and Thor’s brother Loki, as well as Stellan Skarsgard and Colm Feore, Branagh has picked the three actors who will play The Warriors Three.

The Warriors Three are a Marvel Comics creation – three Asgardians gods who fight alongside Thor. They include Volstagg the Valiant (Ray Stevenson), Fandral the Dashing (Stuart Townsend) and Hogun the Grim (Tadanobu Asano).

Stevenson is the star of the hit tv series Rome but also starred in Punisher: War Zone last year.

Townsend is best know for playing Lestat de Lioncourt in Queen of the Damned and Dorian Gray in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Tadanobu Asano is considered the Johnny Depp of Japan. He is probably best known in North America for his roles in Ichi the Killer and Mongol.

Thor will be in theatres on May 20, 2011.

Pretty funny, if you ask me.

Crazy Heart opens December 16th, 2009.

Alice in Wonderland opens March 5, 2010.

For my part, I will give the one and only reason you will require to be convinced to never even step foot into a building that has a theatre that is playing this movie. According to the website MonstersAndCritics.com, Cruise wants his wife, Katie Holmes, to play a villain in the movie. I really don’t think that even Tom Cruise could possibly be that crazy but this is what the website has one of those ever-elusive “inside sources” as saying:

Tom is very excited about taking ‘Mission: Impossible’ in a new direction and he sees Katie as a big part of that. They have wanted to work together for a while now but the idea of being a couple on screen in a romantic comedy is a bit dull. This might give them a chance to have some fun both as a couple and as hero and villainess.

I’m calling complete bullshit on this one but can you imagine? I wonder if there has ever been a movie in the history of film that has had a $0 box office. If this turns out to be true, we might find out!

Salt opens July 2010.