For the most part, I don't enjoy the current wave of teen films (such as the Scream series, though I am a horror fan), as they seem entirely too fake and cheesy (the only one I truly liked was 10 Things I Hate About You, basically because I like the entire cast). Where Empire Records did seem fake (the story line of an employee blowing $9000 of the store's money gambling and the boss deciding to pay it out of his own pocket is ridiculous), for some reason I found myself enjoying it quite a bit. I think the story in this film is quite a bit better than most in this crazed genre, and its one that keeps your attention. Why? I'm not quite sure. I think one of the reasons could possibly be that I have always wanted to have a job like that. I always wanted to work to be a fun place to go to, one that you did not mind going into day after day. In some ways, it reminded me of a job I once had, as my coworkers were great, and we considered our managers as friends, and we had fun at work while we actually got things accomplished, but not to the extent of fun these people had. The acting in this film is quite good, surprisingly. There is only one actor (the stoner) who I found to be quite unlaughably bad (so bad he's not even funny). Where most of the actors aren't overly known (Johnny Whitworth, Rory Cochrane), they do their parts convincingly, yet failed to make a name for themselves. I found both of those actors to be quite good, yet I'd never seen them in anything before. Other key players (Renee Zellweger and Liv Tyler) have become more `mainstream' after Empire Records. I'd been recommended this film several times since its release, and I never thought it seemed interesting enough to sit down and watch it. I'm certainly glad I saw it, however. I believe the film has a certain rewatchability that I look for in films (that so many films lack). Though I don't think this film would be considered cult just yet, it certainly will gain that status some day along with the dozens of other teen movies in the genre. In another ten years or so, people will look back upon these films and undoubtedly laugh at them the way we now laugh at films from the 1980s. I am not a fan of this genre mainly because I find it quite ridiculous that they portray `teens' (however, most of the time the actors portraying these teens are actually in their 20s, which is another thing that bothers me) acting the way they do. It's even more disturbing to see some idiotic people follow the lead of these `teens' and act like this in real life, which I see more and more, and tend to avoid people like this. I do think that when looking back on this genre after 20 years that this film will be considered one of the better ones. Where I wouldn't recommend this film to everyone, I would have to recommend it to certain types of people.
Review of Empire Records
