SECRET TALES OF GUMMY BEAR WOE:
Spent the morning at the Broadway Screening Room – not as fancy as it sounds – catching a screener for Assault on Precinct 13 on behalf of Box Office Magazine. It’s got Ethan Hawke and Drea de Soprano Girl. More importantly, it’s got Laurence Fishburne, a man of which to whom everything is a tomb. Nobody will get that. :9

Anyway, it’s a decent flick. I have to let it all soak in before I can really decide if it’s worth recommending, but as far as formulaic remakes go, they did about as much with this as could be expected. Won’t bore you with the details since they’re all available on IMDB – I’m only mentioning this to confess my secret tales of Gummy Bear Woe.

Okay, so the only reason I signed on for this assignment was because the screening room (think movie theater, just a lot smaller) is just a couple of blocks down from the office. Untypical as it may be to go into work late so you can go to…work, my boss gave her blessing and said she hoped my grandfather pulled through. On the way there, it hit me that I probably wouldn’t have a chance to eat anything until around 2, so I stopped at a bodega and chucked bucks at the sad man for two little bags of gummy bears. This is where most stories would get interesting, but mine’s only going to get gummyting.

In a medium sized room full of movie reviewers of a much more professional persuasion than myself, the lights went down and the movie cranked up. The audience laughs when necessary, but generally, this is a really quiet atmosphere. Everyone is there for serious business. No talking, no opening doors, no accidental cell phone rings, and certainly no noisy ruffling of the two bags of gummy bears hidden in my coat pocket.

Assault on Precinct 13 is a movie with more than its fair share of explosions, car bombings, grenade go-offs and Pokemon metronomes. During each and every instance that something on the screen loudly blew up, I’d rapidly dig into my pocket, grab a bunch of bears and shove ‘em down my throat before anyone could catch on. This went on for -- according to the press notes -- 109 minutes.

They should make a movie about my gummy bear story, not Precinct 13.