![]() ![]() There is the rambunctious, livewire Mark (Ethan Embry), the counter-culture, melancholy Deb (Robin Tunney), the catty, confident Gina (Renee Zellweger), the arty, lovesick A.J. Other than store manager Joe (Anthony LaPaglia), the cast consists largely of teens, or adults pretending to be as such. It’s characters were employees of the titular record store, an independent shop that is on the verge of coming under the wing of a national chain. Where that picture dealt with a character played by Christian Slater who ran a pirate radio station, Empire Records took us into a more corporate world, of a sort. The movie was directed by Allan Moyle, who had previously done a film also tied to the world of music Pump Up the Volume. Released on Septemand out of theatres by the end of October, Empire Records earned a tad over $300,000 at the box-office. Why did this happen? Should it have happened? Is Empire Records a forgotten classic, a rightly ignored stab at appealing to America’s youth or something in between? ![]() ![]() Unlike John Hughes’ filmography, the movie is talked about with as much frequency and import as Pogs or other 90s staples that faded as quickly as they came. I think many of us believed the thing would stand as the 90s edition of The Breakfast Club, with various personalities finding out how similar they are and uniting for a common cause. It was a combination of Richard Linklater’s chattiness and simplicity with Cameron Crowe’s sweetness and romance. I gorged on various Monty Python movies, Evil Dead pictures and a handful of other releases. It’s the first film I can remember flatly stating as my favorite film all of time. Friends were made over the sole fact that the other person loved Empire Records too. Yet, for people like me, it was a pop-culture milestone. The only lasting impact it appears to have on internet culture is the rather small, if annual, celebration of “Rex Manning Day,” which ties into the movie’s central plot. It came and went in theatres, won zero film-related awards and no long appears on cable every weekend. If you weren’t in middle school or high school in the mid-90s, Empire Records likely means nothing to you. For people of a certain age, specifically those on the border of Generation X and Millennial, this next sentence will make you feel old. ![]()
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