This funny film is a day in a life of Empire Records, an
independently owned record store. The manager, a thirty-something music fan
named Joe Reaves (Anthony LaPaglia) is trying to buy his way into becoming a
partner with the owner, Mitch (Ben Bode). Mitch is not a music fan, and is
seriously considering selling Empire to a music store conglomerate. Joe sees
becoming a partner as a way of ultimately buying-and saving-Empire Records,
which he would keep as it is. Unfortunately, Joe's plans get derailed when
Lucas, the night manager whose job it is to lock up the store, takes the store's
money and gambles it all away at Atlantic City. Lucas, an intense, earnest young
man who is a few cards short of a full deck, actually meant well. He wanted to
get more than enough of money so that Joe could buy the store outright. But
regardless of his noble (if somewhat off-kilter) intentions, Joe is now looking
at using his own savings to pull Lucas out of trouble.
And that's not all. Today is also Rex Manning day. Manning is one of those
ex-hip, so-yesterday, faded pop stars, and Maxwell Caulfield does a great job at
playing a smarmy egomaniac who just can't give up the glory, nor the young
groupies. Empire Records is playing host to Manning, who is signing copies of
his new album, and he becomes caught up in the wild goings-on that occur around
him. Despite the standard "let's-save-the-farm" plot Empire Records is a really
entertaining movie. Most of the comedy comes from the typical shenanigans that
occur between the young store clerks, with Joe acting as a long-suffering
referee. The cast assembled to play the angst-ridden clerks is impressive. Liv
Tyler plays the starry-eyed Corey; Renée Zellweger is the vivacious Gina; Robin
Tunney is the moody and deep Debra; Ethan Embry is affable as the
musician-wannabe Mark; Johnny Whitworth is tortured artist A.J.; and Rory
Cochrane is memorable as the deadpan, not-of-this-earth Lucas.
The DVD that I reviewed is the "Remix! Special Fan Edition" that had been
recently released. This edition of the film includes an additional 16 minutes of
footage that had never been seen before, and it is a vast improvement over an
already funny movie. Among the newly added scenes is one at the beginning where
Lucas reluctantly allows a female customer into the store after closing hours.
The woman, who is a bit flighty, asks Lucas if he thinks a bold and courageous
act can change the course of history. This new scene actually better explains
Lucas' off the wall decision to play all the store's money at Atlantic City.
Other added scenes include one with AJ trying to tell Gina and Corey what
happened with Lucas, but the girls have some trouble staying focused; Corey's
little sister showing up at the store to deliver a letter from Harvard, and a
funny bit when AJ asks Gina what did she and Corey do last night. And there's
much more.
The extras include four deleted scenes (which were wisely left out of the film)
and three music videos (Rex Manning's "Say No More", and two from the heavy
metal band GWAR: "Saddam A Go-Go" and "Vlad The Impaler-Live!"). The picture and
sound quality is also vastly improved over the original DVD. But the added
scenes are the real reason to pick up this special edition. They enable you to
even spend more time with a bunch of fun characters.