Empire Records (1995)

Directed by Allan Moyle. Starring Anthony LaPaglia, Rory Cochrane, Johnny Whitworth, Liv Tyler, Renée Zellweger, Ethan Randall, Robin Tunney, Maxwell Caulfield, Brendan Sexton III, Debi Mazar, Coyote Shivers, Ben Bode. [PG-13]

An incident-laden day-in-the-life of employees at a record store that’s on the verge of being sold to a national chain. This feeble comedy’s bleak outlook from the opening passages are not improved as it goes along, as each of the characters are given sketchy introductions and proceed to plug up the flow with their magazine-rack quirks, and deal with their shallow and phony hang-ups in the convenient sort of structure that allows for resolution by closing time. These disparate rascals are all hammered together from screw-up stereotypes—the spastic weirdo, the sullen basketcase, the sarcastic misfit, etc.—and not a one of them ever has anything interesting to say or do (okay, Cochrane gets a couple of amusing lines). Less a “time capsule movie” as related to the pop culture and milieu of its era than one related to the idea that youth angst and alternative behavior could be “replicated” by an outsider as a brand to be packaged for commercial consumption. Has a small but devoted fanbase, however, and there are certainly some choice cuts on the eclectic soundtrack.

22/100