A Nutshell Review: Empire Records Remix! Special Fan Edition (1995)

Rating: 7/10 (29 November 2005)

This quirky take with memorable characters take place in a span of 24 hours in a record store known as Empire Records (Tower Records anyone?) It highlights a day in the life of the store employees, made up of teeny boppers like proverb spewing Lucas (Rory Cochrane), suicidal rebel Jane (Debi Mazar), slutty Gina (Renee Zellweger), smarty pants Corey (Liv Tyler), amongst others.
The story starts off with Lucas taking nine thousand dollars from the cashier at night before he closes the store, and loses it all in a hilarious sequence at Atlantic City. Joe, the co-owner, learns about this, and the recovery of this amount of money forms the running theme in this movie.
Thrown into the plot is an equally hilarious character Rex Manning, a has-been singer who's due at the store for an autograph session with his fans. You'll definitely dig one of his cheesy music videos. Corey has a crush on Rex, and tries to seduce him, but falls flat in embarrassment. Of course she's shocked when good friend Gina manages to pull the seduction off, and me-ow, a catfight ensues.
As if the day isn't bogged down with too much activities in serving customers and spinning good music in the store, the employees learn that their beloved Empire Records will be absorbed by Music Town, a larger competitor. Therefore it's also a race against time to preserve the identity of their store.
But it's a feel good movie, with feel good songs sprinkled with the occasional metal, so the ending is somewhat predictable with all threads and sub plots merging into one grand finale. Needless to mention, my primary objective is actually to watch Liv and Renee in one of their earlier movies :-)