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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 18594
Released: April 3, 2001 |
| Our Price: $35.75 |
| Used Price: $23.75 |
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MPAA Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
This story about a day in the life of an independent record store, truly a threatened species, screeches with the sound of teenagers falling apart emotionally every five minutes. The script, which feels like an old guy's idea of how kids talk and think, concerns the young employees of a Delaware music shop faced with imminent extinction. While the ship is sinking, the staff indulge in tantrums, depressions, and run-ins with low self-esteem. There's a lot of noise in this thing, but not a lot is really said. Rory Cochrane has the best part as a secretive guy who loses the store's proceeds one night while gambling, Anthony LaPaglia is the adult boss and unofficial dad to the others, Renée Zellweger plays a promiscuous girl, and Liv Tyler is OK as a lovestruck sweet thing trying to get up the nerve to express her feelings to a fellow employee. --Tom Keogh
Empire Records Reviews:
great cast, awesome music, good film 
2009-11-22 - i finally got around to seeing Empire Records, and it's an awesome movie. Much like in the same mold as Dazed and Confused and Almost Famous, the cast is rock solid, the music is awesome, and movies are great.
Empire Records is about a music store owner and his employees who are on the verge of being sold and turned into Music Town, a national music retail chain which doesn't allow revealing clothes, tatoos, and other such things that Empire Records doesn't really care too much about.
They have one day to figure out how to come up with the money after one of the employees, Lucas, takes the money from the night before, finds out about Music Town, and decides to try his luck in Atlantic City to save the store and his friends.
The cast is completely awesome and contains many young and up and coming actors (1995 movie), including Liv Tyler, Renee Zellwegger, Rory Cochrane (Dazed and Confused), Robin Tunney, and Ethan Randall (Can't Hardly Wait).
one of the best parts of the movie is the kid who plays the Shoplifter and goes by the name of Warren Beauty.
overall, Empire Records is awesome. I would highly recommend Empire Records if you're a fan of movies with good casts and good music.
this is not empire records 
2009-11-09 - this is not the empire records you remember. unfortunately whoever issued this dvd almost completely reedited the sound tracks, and for the worst. for a movie where the music is so important this makes what was a great little movie into a so so remake.
Empire Records 
2009-11-03 - Took a while to ship but case seems to be broken when i got it
Wouldn't You Want to Work Here?
2009-08-01 - Would you like to go to work every day where the employees are all like family? Would you like to work in an environment where some of you hate each other, some of you love each other and some of you royally screw up, but when one of you needs help, everyone is there for each other, including the boss? And to top it all off, this utopia of a job is centered in a music store. If this sounds right up your alley, then you can also live vicariously through the kids in "Empire Records". The movie is a fantastic snapshot of somewhat carefree youth in the 90's and has an exciting soundtrack to boot.
This film tells the tale of a group of young kids who work in a record store. Lucas, (Rory Cochrane), finds out while closing the store one evening that the Music Town franchise is going to try to take over Empire Records. He makes the snap decision to head to Atlantic City with $9,000 of the store's money to try to gamble up enough money to save the store from succumbing to the corporation. Of course, Lucas loses it all and the rest of the film takes place over the course of one day, which just happens to be Rex Manning day!
Rex Manning, (Maxwell Caulfield), is a famous singer who is visiting the store for a meet-and-greet that day along with his assistant Jane, (Debi Mazar). Corey, (Liv Tyler), has been awaiting this day her whole life so that she can lose her virginity to him. Gina, (Renee Zellweger), is her promiscuous friend who has always been secretly jealous of how smart Corey is, which only intensifies when Corey finds out she has been accepted to Harvard.
Meanwhile A.J., (Johnny Whitworth), is determined that he will tell Corey how he feels about her by 1:37 PM. Deb, (Robyn Tunney), comes into work and immediately shaves her head. She had apparently tried to commit suicide the night before after a fight with Berko, (Coyote Shivers). But this doesn't bother Mark, (Ethan Embry as Ethan Randall), the adorable comic relief of the film who won't let the horrible events of the day ruin Rex Manning Day!
Anthony LaPaglia is endearing as Joe, the boss with a heart of gold who is more of a dad than a boss to these kids. Hilarity ensues when someone tries to shoplift some CD's and when Mark eats some hash brownies, amongst other chaos, but the film culminates in a true happy ending when everyone's dreams come true in one way or another. Well, almost everyone's.
Unfortunately though, the "Remix! Special Fan Edition" of the DVD, is disappointing and not worth your time. Most DVDs allow you to view the deleted scenes separately but in this version, the additional 16 minutes of extra footage are already input into the film. You're basically watching the uncut version. Some scenes are helpful, like you realize why Cory really runs out of the room when Rex Manning agrees to have sex with her, (which was a bit confusing in the edited version), and some scenes are not helpful at all, like in the very beginning when Lucas has a "deep" discussion with a customer that he lets in after hours. Plus, the line when Rex says, "why don't you all just fade away?" is changed.
This version focuses more on the music of the film, which is good and bad. Most people who are a fan of this film also adore the 90's alternative rock soundtrack, which features artists like the Gin Blossoms and the Cranberries. When you open up the DVD's cover, the scenes are printed on the left with the song that accompanies each scene. So for example, if you feel like listening to "'Til I Hear It From You" from the Gin Blossoms, you can skip exactly to the scene that has that song in it. This is a great feature and would be helpful if it accompanied other movies.
However, the down side is that the volume on the music is really amped up in the movie. Normally, you would think this was a great feature for a film to have but you have to crank up the volume way past half to hear the dialogue and then when the music comes on, you get blasted out of the couch.
The movie itself is excellent and has everybody in a great mood by the time the credits roll but if you are the type of person who is known for saying, "don't mess with the original!", then don't pick up this version.
big fan
2009-05-21 - i love this show and when my VHS finally gave up the ghost i had to have a new copy one of the best ficks from the 80's and the cast is the bomb!!
