One of my favorite bad movies

Rating: 6/10 (30 May 2015)

"Empire Records" is not a good movie: it's flimsy, shallow and deeply, profoundly stupid. It's like a cross between a Guess jeans commercial and an episode of "I Love the 90s", with pop culture references instead of dialog and youth culture clichés instead of characters. It's a Twinkie of a movie - a momentary sugar high with no nutritional value whatsoever.
Yet, I can't help but like it. "Empire Records" is the kind of cheerfully brainless movie you watch when you're sick or you can't sleep. When you're too stressed to take anything of any substance, its high-spirited, empty-headed charm is pretty soothing, like comfort food or a pair of well-worn sweat pants. Sometimes you need to watch a stupid movie; when you feel such a need, "Empire Records" is just what the doctor ordered.
"Empire Records" doesn't have a story so much as a series of vignettes held together by a thin plot device: the titular record store, which is about to go out of business. The store is staffed by a motley group of Pretty White Kids With Problems who listen to inoffensively "edgy" alternative rock (Gin Blossoms, the Cranberries, etc). They spend their day in the store angsting over unrequited love, musing about movies and bands, and having the obligatory life-changing revelations. (This keeps them too busy to do any actual work; not once do you see anyone so much as clean the bathroom.) They then throw a big party that miraculously saves the store, and everybody finds love and happiness. The end.
I know, it's ridiculous. "Empire Records" redefines the word "stupid". Nevertheless, every time I see this movie I can't help but smile. Maybe it takes me back to when I first saw it, at 14 - when all I wanted out of life was to hang out, listen to music, and feel like I had the elusive, all-important power of being cool.
The cast - actors like Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, and Brendan Sexton - were avatars of cool for adolescents in the mid-90s, and the simple act of watching them made us feel cool by proxy, as if they were letting us hang out with them at the popular kids' table. At that moment in our lives, they gave us what was then the ultimate gift: the fantasy of being forever young, beautiful and hip. Most people eventually outgrow the need to be cool, but when you're a teenager, it's like oxygen. "Empire Records" brings us back to an idealized version of that time, and the nostalgia washes over us in a wave of warm fuzzies. If a movie can do that, it doesn't need to be good.
"Empire Records" may not be a good movie in the strictest sense, but I can watch it with a smile on my face, even if I forget about it moments after I finish watching it. It's cinematic junk food, but so what? There's nothing wrong with a donut every now and again. Just don't let it spoil your appetite for more substantial fare.