Empire Records

source: Empire Records

This movie is the best ever about being a teenager in the nineties. Every person under the age of 21 needs to see this film.

This movie is pretty bad, let's start off with that. This movie takes everything that Clerks was (is), or at least the concept, and changes it into an over-budgeted, unoriginal, thoughtless beast of a movie. People who see it after about 1996 won't like it due to the fact that most of the music in the movie A) Is terrible and B) has disappeared with the rest of the crap that was in the mid-90s music genre. Many problems go unresolved in this movie, dialogue is forced, and everything is very unimaginable. This movie is just that much worse since so many people like it. If you want a movie about young people's angst with their useless jobs and lovelives, see Clerks. At least it has words that not everyone can understand.

i dunno. theres just something about this movie. yeh, in actuality, its probably dreck. its probably worthless and people probably wont remember its years and years from now when they start making out the lists of '90s movies that changed the sphere of moviemaking. so what? for me, this movie really does capture the feel of the mid-'90s. i was like these people once. i wore an outfit scarily like the one liv tyler sports (although without the hideous unders combo, im sure), i knew people like every one of the 'archetypes' from the movie and i really, really wanted to work in a record store. hasnt everybody? and doesnt everybody want there to be a cool record store like this in their town? i guess for me it is a nostalgia thing, but i watched it (again) the other night with my boyfriend, and we both still laughed during the funny parts and cuddled during the sweet parts and, well, danced during the dance parts. its just fun to look back on such a 'time-period' movie like that ... the clothes, the attitudes, the music even ... how good is it to hear the gin blossoms again, eh? im sure many would disagree, but for someone who was right there when it was all happening, so to say, its a gentle reminder of the days before mtv committed suicide, before liv tyler started making 'real' movies, and when phrases like 'whats with Today, today?' could travel through a junior high faster than mono.

This noxious, fecal, rancid excuse for a film had me terribly disgusted throughout. The plot feels much like something out of a poor NBC sitcom; in fact, NBC might've done a better job with it. The cast was totally stereotypical and unexciting, the idea was formulaic, and I felt cheated out of my time and money by seeing this movie. 0.0/5.0 stars.

This was much better off as a fond memory; digging it out of the archives for a modern viewing just made me question my younger self's taste in movies. A storeful of vapid, self-absorbed caricatures come together to hawk records, listen to radio-friendly '90s mush and reveal just how shallow they truly are as a collective. Very young Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger show some skin and look good doing so, but that's pretty much the only highlight. Whoever chose the soundtrack for this needs to be deafened for the good of all mankind - for a store that's supposed to be all about the anti-establishment, it's got very bland, mainstream tastes.

Roger Ebert pretty much summed this movie up best when he described it as a soundtrack in search of a film. There's no plot here, just a bunch of obnoxious teens goofing off and dancing. This is one of those movies that really insults your intelligence. Spare yourself and rent something else instead.

Everyone was talking about this movie, Empire Records..."Empire Records is great, man...you gotta see it!!!" So I did, and I hated it. From beginning to end it was like one big suckfest and everyone was invited. Had it not been for Ethan Embry and Renee Zelwegger, I probably would have turned it off, but I thought that they did great jobs, and I commend them for working so hard on a bad movie. The director also, I much prefer his old work, such as Pump Up The Volume with Christian Slater...That was a real movie, Empire Records is like, Pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-teenage crap...I don't know anyone that is above the age of eleven that acts as immature as they do... There were scenes that I liked, especially the ones with Brendan Sexton III, but other than that, I thought the whole thing was mundane, boring, and stupid...I wish I could recommend it, but I just can't.

Oh, where do I start? The acting is the best part...and it is poor. The script is nonsensical, and the characters' motivations change seemingly with the wind! It is obviously trying to get by on charm, but Empire Records has none! The soundtrack of bad mid-90s "rockers" such as Better Than Ezra and the Gin Blossoms doesn't really help things. No...it doesn't help things one bit!

I had heard a lot about this movie, that it was one of those really great but under-appreciated 90's movies, so I decided to watch it. It is now one of my favorite movies and I'm really glad that I saw it. Every actor does a great job - they make you feel like you've known them forever and you really go through the troubles that they are going through. I especially liked Ethan Embry as Mark and Johnny Whitworth as A.J. I was really surprised with how well Liv Tyler acted the part. The characters themselves are really relate able, and made me want to work at that store so badly. Also, it had one of the best soundtracks I have ever heard. I loved how they incorporated the music into each scene - it was part of what was going on, not just background noise. Overall, this was a really great movie - ***** out of 5.