Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Empire Records Blu-ray Movie Review

Low Fidelity

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 5, 2015

The cult classic, Empire Records, has suffered almost as capricious a fate as its director, Alan Moyle, whose career was derailed for almost ten years by the failure of his first film, Times Square (1980). Moyle returned in 1990 with his only major success to date, the teen classic Pump Up the Volume, starring Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis. The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag (1992) barely made an impression, and three years later, the history of Times Square was repeated when disputes with the producers resulted in the release of Empire Records in a re-edited and truncated form. About forty minutes were cut, several characters were dropped altogether, and the story, which had originally spanned two days, was compressed into one. No one knows how Moyle's original version would have performed, but the producers' cut flopped.

Moyle's cut of the film remains unreleased, but in 2003 Warner Home Video issued a so-called "Remix! Special Fan Edition" DVD of Empire Records with sixteen minutes of additional footage cut back into the film, plus four deleted scenes. For its Blu-ray release, one would have hoped that Warner would at least give the fans both the theatrical and "remix" versions of Empire Records, but only the theatrical cut has been included.

A long time ago in an economy far far away, there were independent music stores struggling not to be acquired by large national chains. One such store was Empire Records in an unnamed Delaware city, which its owner, Mitchell Beck (Ben Bodé), would like to sell to the chain known as Music Town. The store's motley crew of teenage employees would rather retain their free-spirited ways under the exasperated supervision of manager Joe (Anthony LaPaglia), who tolerates their goofy behavior, because, at heart, he's still one of them (or he used to be).

The situation is aggravated when, for the first time, Lucas (Rory Cochrane) is given the job of closing up the store. Because the script by Carol Heikkinen never bothers with such elementary matters as establishing character, it's not clear why Lucas does so, but he takes it into his head to grab the day's receipts (about $9,000) and goes to Atlantic City, where he's sure he can gamble them into enough to buy the store from Beck. Naturally, Lucas loses everything and has to return empty-handed the next morning, where a furious Joe spends the day covering for him (though why he does so is also unclear; motivation is something else to which Heikkinen gives short shrift). The effort to get back the money is one of Empire Records' through lines.

The other through line is the visit that day by faded idol Keith Manning (Maxwell Caulfield, Grease 2), who is attempting to boost sales of his latest album with personal appearances and autographs. But Manning's problem is a simple matter of demographics. "My mom loves you", says one teenager in line. "I've never even heard of you"—which sums up Manning's place in the pop firmament. Still, one of the store's employees, Corey (Liv Tyler), has been fantasizing about Manning since she was a little girl. A driven overachiever for whose father no report card is good enough, Corey is still a virgin, but she has made up her mind that today is the day to lose it—with Manning. Or so she tells her friend, Gina (Renée Zellweger), who lost it long ago and has continued exploring life on the other side of losing it ever since then. If only Corey's best friend and co-worker, A.J. (Johnny Whitworth), could work up the nerve to tell her that he's desperately in love with her, she might realize that she has a better option.

The staff also includes Deb (Robin Tunney), who arrives with her wrist bandaged from a half-hearted suicide attempt and proceeds to cut off all her hair (her boyfriend, Berko, is played by musician Coyote Shivers), and Mark (Ethan Embry, billed as "Ethan Randall"), a blond naif with a perpetual grin and a stoner's laugh. Screenwriter Heikkinen is supposed to have based the misadventure of this clan, as their day steadily deteriorates, on her actual experiences working at a Tower Records store in Phoenix, Arizona, but the more obvious template for this exploration of teenage angst is John Hughes's The Breakfast Club , which also relied on a contemporary soundtrack to punctuate its moods. (There's even a direct quotation from the Hughes classic in an exchange between Corey and Deb.)

The difference is that Hughes knew how to create characters, whereas Heikkinen can only write incidents, and Moyle is unable to draw anything more than attitude out of his cast, many of whom were talented enough to go on to bigger and better things. Not much happens in The Breakfast Club, which all takes place during a dull Saturday's detention, but the incidents feel substantial, because Hughes was able to get us invested in the characters and their feelings. Empire Records, by contrast, is a busy film loaded with activity, but none of it registers with any impact. Manning's assistant (Debi Mazar) quits; Corey embarrasses herself; Lucas chases a shoplifter (Brendan Sexton III); A.J. despairs; Mark grins repeatedly, to the point where you wonder whether he needs medication; Gina seduces yet another guy. The hyperactivity has the randomness of pachinko balls and the emotional weight of a soap opera on fast forward. And yes, of course, the record store is saved. Lucas' embezzlement? No one cares.

Moyle demonstrated with Pump Up the Volume, which he scripted himself, that he could capture the sense of teenage alienation when focusing on a single character, and it's possible that, if he had been allowed his original length and two-day time period, he might have achieved a better result with the ensemble of Empire Records. Then again, it's also possible that the reason the producers found it so easy to perform such drastic surgery on the film is because the forty minutes of deleted scenes were just more of the same, prolonging the manic activity without ever bringing it into focus. We can only speculate, but at least the fans now have the theatrical cut on Blu-ray.

Empire Records Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Empire Records was shot by Walt Lloyd, reuniting with Moyle after Pump Up the Volume. With much of the film shot on a single soundstage (exteriors were filmed in Wilmington, NC), Lloyd had to rely on production designer Peter Jamison's profusion of posters, merchandise and rock 'n' roll bric-a-brac for visual interest, plus the non-conformist clothing that the staff would have to surrender if Music Town took over and imposed a uniform.

Warner's "Remix!" DVD of Empire Records was advertised as being from an "all new 2003 digital transfer", but this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray appears to have been mastered from the even older transfer used for the DVD of the theatrical cut. It's colorful enough, but the image lacks sharpness, and fine detail is often weak and indistinct. Especially in a film where working at the record store of the title has become the focus of the characters' emotional lives, every element in the store should be as clearly visible as possible, but in this presentation, it isn't. The Blu-ray certainly improves on the DVD, but it is far from the best that Empire Records could look.

Warner has placed the 90-minute film on a BD-25, resulting in an average bitrate of 22.95 Mbps. The bandwidth is adequate, especially given the lack of fine detail, but the film would probably need more with a better scan.

Empire Records Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's original 5.1 mix has been encoded in lossless DTS-HD MA. Nor surprisingly, it emphasizes the diverse soundtrack from an array of artists ranging from those who appeared on the CD (e.g., Gin Blossoms, Evan Dando, Toad the Wet Sprocket) to others who were left off the album but were included in the film for thematic or period reasons (such as The Buggles for "Video Killed the Radio Star" or The Flying Lizards for their cover of "Money (That's What I Want)"). The songs have been mixed to have an enveloping presence that uses the entire surround array, which conveys a sense of music's centrality in the characters' live. Other sounds, even the cacophony of an Atlantic City casino, are underplayed.

Empire Records Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Although the Blu-ray contains the theatrical cut of the film, which was released on DVD in 2001 with just a trailer, the extras have been ported over from the 2003 "Remix! Special Fan Edition" DVD.

• Deleted Scenes (480i; 2.40:1; 7:39): A "play all" function is included.
• Hey Joe—Game Boy
• Rex Sulks and Talks, Playing with Berko
• Don Confronts Lucas
• Say No More



• Music Video (480i)
• Rex Manning "Say No More" (2.40:1; 3:15).
• Gwar "Sadam A Go-Go" (1.85:1; 2:35).
• Gwar "Vlad the Impaler" Live (1.85:1; 3:15): Featuring "Mark" (Ethan Embry), this is the performance that Mark hallucinates on TV when he's stoned.



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 2.40:1, enhanced; 2:25): "Now, five friends have one day to decide what to do with the rest of their lives." It's really six friends, and they have more than one day, but you can see the marketers struggling to stamp the film with a familiar genre label.

Empire Records Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Even though it's only been twenty years since the release of Empire Records, the entire notion of an independent music store fighting off a major chain has been rendered quaint. Today it's the chains that are fighting for survival, and most have already lost the battle. The music has gone elsewhere, as it always does. It went elsewhere in 1995, when the CD for Empire Records did better than the film. Both the album and the many songs that didn't make the collection are enjoyable listening (if, in some cases, a little dated). The film itself, however, is a busy mess that's strictly for existing fans and the occasional new initiate, who will most likely be someone of a tender age. The Blu-ray is no more than adequate on its technical merits. In no event should anyone "blind buy".