Best movie of this year hands down!

I gave this film a 9 out of 10, because it was exactly what I expected it to be.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

It's the 90's, Romania just got away (to some extent) from communist suppression. The advantage is that good music and movies are coming in more easily and that is importantI might be biased by all this, but this i such a nice movie, even with all the cheesy lines and happenings. I like the characters, so different and quirky and the plot, so easy to digest, yet not simple. Of course this is not a masterpiece and yet it is enjoyable and funny and even the fact that it's portraying some small piece of an era so well is amazing. I've watched this in 2013 and yet I could relate and understand it was a good teen movie, meant to entertain and make you fell like those simpler times were the place to be, like you wanted to go back to that somehow... Please don't dismiss this, it is a piece o history, well put, well written, well played.ENJOY :)

Empire Records is arguably the closest the 90s came to channeling one of those memorable 80s teen ensembles like the Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles or Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Occurring almost entirely within the confines of an independent music store and utilizing some then fairly unknown, but quality, young actors like Liv Tyler, Renee Zellweger, Ethan Embry, Rory Cochrane, Johnny Whitworth, and Robin Tunney with an excellent older cast Maxwell Caulfield, Anthony Lapaglia and Debi Lazar.Lapaglia stars as Joe Reaves, the manager of Empire Records, an independent music store facing hard times and on the verge of selling out to the Music Town franchise thanks to the evil owner Mitchell Beck (Ben Bode). For many of Reaves teenage staff, Empire Records is their last chance saloon. On the day after Lucas (Cochrane) in a last ditch attempt to save the store, steals all of the money from the store safe and loses it at a casino, Reaves tells his employees about the impending sale. With a past his prime 80s rock star Rex Manning (Caulfield, brilliant) visiting the shop to sign autographs the confused staff work through their various issues and try to come to terms with the coming change.The film has an excellent soundtrack and some great comedy scenes. LaPaglia is excellent and he is ably supported by the minor players. Cochrane's Lucas and Tunney's Debra being the standouts. Though Whitmore and Tyler do their best to drag proceedings down with a fairly unremarkable love story. This was a much loved film among teen audiences when it came out in 1995, and many years on, while dated, still stands up. It goes a little more deeply into some significant issues faced by the characters, without getting bogged down by them, though it does offer some too easy solutions.In the end if you take good performances, a great soundtrack, and an basic plot, you get a good movie.

Empire Records is funny and slightly offbeat teen movie. A well built one, which each quirky character having a well defined personality, a set of problems, and realistic interactions with each other. Their personas all ring solidly true, each with deep emotional affects. However, not everybody will see themselves represented here, it is but a thin slice of society.The music is good, the dialogs are interesting just like the story, and it keeps an overall positive tone, although it does talk about some serious issues. It touches each subjects lightly, and keep the focus on the what is happening, on the development of the situation.You will be entertained, if you're looking for a good adolescent flick.

This was much better off as a fond memory; digging it out of the archives for a modern viewing just made me question my younger self's taste in movies. A storeful of vapid, self-absorbed caricatures come together to hawk records, listen to radio-friendly '90s mush and reveal just how shallow they truly are as a collective. Very young Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger show some skin and look good doing so, but that's pretty much the only highlight. Whoever chose the soundtrack for this needs to be deafened for the good of all mankind - for a store that's supposed to be all about the anti-establishment, it's got very bland, mainstream tastes.