EMPIRE RECORDS (1995)
So this movie is about a group of employees that work at a record store. The store is about to be turned into a more corporate location with stricter rules. It was written by Carol Heikkinen, a former Tower Records employee at Christown Mall. I was at Christown Mall quite often as a kid and actually saw INDEPENDENCE DAY there in 1996 (a year after this movie came out). It’s kind of odd to me that I didn’t even see this movie till about 2015, and had zero idea it was connected to a Tower Records I’d been to. Anyway – one of the employees loses a bunch of the stores money gambling. His idea was to win enough money to keep the store from being taken over. The rest of the movie explores basically a bunch of teenage drama, a rock star named Rex Manning, and basically how in the 90’s it was entirely possible to both rob a record store, and end up working for it in the same day.
This might be one of Liv Tyler’s most icon roles (she plays Corey Mason). The movie also features one of the greatest teenage breakdowns ever filmed, which comes from her character. The rest of the cast is pretty standard performance wise. I guess there are parts where Renee Zellweger’s acting stands out as Gina, but Tyler carried the heavier emotional load. Anthony LaPaglia as Joe, reminds me a lot of managers at different stores I’d end up at in the 90’s. His character to this day would probably be perfect for a job at ZIA Records. I loved the soundtrack for this thing and have many of the songs on various playlists. The only exception being Gina’s performance of “Sugar High” at the end of the movie where she took a crappy song and managed to keep it just as crappy or worse.
The direction is very straight up, and there are very few shots that are even outside of the record store. The plot itself takes place over 1 night and 1 day into the next night. I am guessing this is a more simplistic rendition than the original shoot. About 40 minutes ended up getting cut out of the film? Dialog wise the move produced several memorable lines and over the years has garnered a cult following. It makes you miss the days when you could actually walk into a record store and listen to bands tapes or CD’s before you bought them. It makes you long for the days when discovering the band was almost an adventure, rather than a click on a computer screen. (Settle down nostalgic Jess, just give us the rating)...
...In spite of being very “basic”, there isn’t a time where I watch this movie and don’t enjoy it. For that reason, it gets a 6 out 7 from me.
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