Marathon of Shops: Empire Records (1995)

Some movies have characters that are going through a warped situation that you are supposed to care for and hope that they make it out.  Some movies have characters that you hate and are supposed to hope get their comeuppance.  Some movies have characters doing bad things to themselves and the people around them, and you are supposed to want them to get better and/or stop their horrible acts.  Among all of these are the movies with characters that are simply likeable, and make you want to spend more time with them.  Empire Records is one of these movies.

Empire Records is a 1995 release featuring such actors and actresses as Anthony LaPaglia, Maxwell Caulfield, Ethan Embry, Renee Zellweger, Liv Tyler, Robin Tunney, and Rory Cochrane among others.  The plot is a day in the life of a record store, which is very close to being sold to a franchise.  The movie is basically an hour and a half of hanging out in a record store.

Come on.  Who wouldn't want to hang out there?

The best parts of the movie, which I’ve already stated, were the characters and the performances of the characters.  Every employee of the record store was likeable and made me want to keep hanging out there.  All of the actors were cast perfectly in their roles, making it so that they were the characters, rather than being an actor playing a role.  It’s a slight differentiation, but it means a lot when watching a movie.

I also need to mention the soundtrack.  From AC/DC to The Buggles to Toad the Wet Sprocket, there was a wide variety of music interspersed throughout the movie.  Each song perfectly fit the moment in which it is played.  There’s not much more to say about popular music used in a movie.

Making music.  Sweet, sweet music.

If there was one weakness in Empire Records, which I’m sure there are actually more, it would be that certain plot threads come in for one scene then disappear without resolution.  One such storyline involved a drug addiction.  It was brought up in one scene of conflict, and then basically forgotten for the remainder of the movie.  If it weren’t for the likeable characters and the possible excuse that it was a story in one day, and this issue needed a longer timeframe to be resolved, this would have been a much more glaring issue.  As it was, it was just a funny little problem I noticed this time around.

All in all, I love Empire Records.  It is in no way an exceptional movie.  It works for me.  It attaches itself to me in a way that certain movies do.  The music, the characters, and the events rope me in every time I watch the movie.  I just like to spend time inside the store watching these characters interact with each other and with the customers and anyone else that comes into the store.  It’s an all around fun time.

Up next in the Marathon of Shops is Observe and Report.  This is the first of the two mall security movies that came out around the same time that is featured in this marathon.  This is the one I don’t like so much.  I don’t quite remember why, so this rewatch should help me to sort that out.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

This is just cool.  I had to include it.