Empire Records movie review

Empire Records is a coming of age teen comedy from 1995 about a group of teenagers who work at record shop. The movie starts with Lucas one of the record store employees finding out that Empire Records is going to become bought out by a corporate record shop, and decides to do something drastic and steals the $9000 bank deposit from the store, and goes to Atlantic City to gamble the money to make enough to save the store...but no such luck as he loses it all. The rest of the movie we have Joe the manager trying to figure out what to do, as he was trying to save enough money to buy the record shop so that it wouldn't have to become a Music Town. Meanwhile the movie introduces the various employees, the perfect prissy Cory (Liv Tyler), the slutty Gina (Rene Zellweger), The angsty Debra (Robin Tunny), the goofy burnout Mark (Ethan Embry), The teenager in love AJ (Johnny Whitworth), The rocker Berko (Coyote Shivers, who happens to be Liv Tyler's real-life step father), as they go through their crazy work day, all the while encountering a shoplifter who calls himself Warren, and let's not for get it's Rex Manning Day!!!!!!!! So AJ, loves Cory, but Cory is obsessed with pop-rock icon Rex Manning, who she shamelessly throws herself at, and is humiliated....oh the drama as Cory and Gina have a fight over the encounter, which promps Gina to fuck Rex. Oh, but then again we all truly hate Rex Manning anyway, including his assistant, who if the movie were to span more than the length of one day, I could see hooking up with Joe. But what will be the outcome? What is the fate of Empire Records and the amazing people who work there? Will they get the money to save the store? Okay, this is one of my favourite movies of all time. I absolutely love EVERYTHING about this movie even the cheesy Rex Manning song that is repeated throughout. Honestly this movie is a test of how awesome people are, because if they get this movie, and if they love this movie then they are a pretty amazing person! This movie is a product of the 90s, these characters are the kids I grew up with, the music is the music that had a big part in shaping me in my formative teenage years. I had crushes on the three main female actresses in this movie...this movie to me is perfect. I say to me, because in 1995 when this movie came out, very few people saw it in the theatre, it was a complete box office bomb, with very few to no positive reviews by the critics, it was hated by the critics at the time, and many movie goes listened to that negative critique. Actually the soundtrack to this movie far surpassed the movie itself in critical success, one critic actually saying that the movie is just an "elaborate excuse to package and peddle a soundtrack CD". The thing is, that in the following years the movie did find it's audience, us 90's teens who music was our life, who spent all of our time and money at our local record shop. The music in this movie is crucial to the movie, because you cannot make a movie about teenagers in the 90's without a strong focus on the music that shaped our lives, this movie is the absolute perfect snapshot of 90's teenagers. I knew these kids (or at least kids like them), they were us, and this movie resonates so deeply with me. This just might be one of my top five favourite movies of all time. Not only has this movie become a cult classic, but it also helped to launch the career of multiple actors and actresses. Speaking of the cast, these characters could not have been more perfectly cast, these actors played their parts absolutely perfectly in every scene in every way. The sets were all great, and pretty minimalistic, it actually looks like a real record shop. The dialogue is perfect, and so many of the lines are memorable and very quotable. The story is great, and multi-layered, the characters are all well developed and very believable. The costumes are all well done as well. And, the music, this movie has an amazing soundtrack with bands like Gin Blossoms, Sponge, The Cranberries, Toad The Wet Sprocket, and Better Than Ezra to say a few, and in the movie there are clips of bands like Gwar, Body Count, Suicidal Tendencies, and others. Again, I can't say it enough, this movie is perfect!!! Would I recommend this movie? Yes, with all of my heart, everyone needs to see this movie, this movie should be re-watched over and over and over again, this movie should be memorized and quoted often! If you have not seen this movie, drop whatever the fuck you are doing and go find it right now!!!!!!!!!!