Happy Rex Manning Day… whatever the hell that means.

Once again, I am back to cover a movie I’ve been brutally chastised for not seeing during my formative years. I’ll note though: thus far this series only covered movies in the 80’s (Top Gun, Caddyshack, and Labyrinth, to date). So I guess we’re now allowing for flicks in the 90s too. Fine by me. 

Empire Records is one of those movies I guess everyone around my age (perhaps a few years older) seems to have a special place in their heart for. Or, perhaps it’s just on April 8th, my social media feed is CHOKED with “Happy Rex Manning Day!” posts, and I’ve long felt on the outside of apparently a massive inside joke. Well, I aim to rectify that feeling by giving this mid-nineties needle-dropper a spin.

Without further adieu… Here’s my hot takes in media res. That’s right: I’m writing these as they come to me, so you can enjoy my journey. Groovy, right?

• • Having seen High Fidelity numerous times… seeing the moniker shortly after the credits roll immediately forced me to google the time difference, as well as pray there wasn’t some “hipster music universe” of films I just fell ass-backwards into.
  • We begin our story with a reminder that the Caesar cut looks stupid. Really stupid, and unibrow-turtleneck-leather-jacket combo-man here ain’t doing it any favors. Yeesh.
  • The analog! The analog! First off, seeing a pile of CASH in today’s “everything is electronic” was a breath of delectably old air. But then the Music Town transparency sheet to place over the Empire Records picture? All I need now is a character to burst in with a disposable camera.
  • The combination of our hero’s yellow-elastiband-wraparounds and the Trump Atlantic City Casino sign absolutely induced nausea.
  • The intro credits have officially stopped rolling. Hero-guy — apparently imbued with higher power (and a screenwriter I’m assuming just graduated high school?) plunks down $9104 in cash on a table, coolly asks what he needs to roll, and throws a seven. He’s immediately befriended by what I assume is a movie-hooker (the kind that only exists in screenplays), and my nausea is only getting worse. I’m very much praying this is a dream sequence, or hero-guy is going to exit the casino, and the hooker shoots him in the back and takes the money. Oh no. Better. He throws snake eyes, and continues jabbering like the overwritten douche I’ve already grown to hate. Sweet!
  • OK. So… I think Too Cool for School Gambling Caesar is Lucas. The store owner is Joe. Joe looks like they wanted Judd Nelson, but opted for whoever would work for scale. Nothing against Anthony LaPaglia mind you, but, before I have long enough to form an actual opinion? We’ve moved on to Liv Tyler (who doesn’t own shoes?) and Renee Zellweger. Not even ten minutes in, and it feels like we’re one goth and one jock away from collecting the Infinity Gems of all centrally cast young people. This might make whoever Rex Manning is… Thanos.
  • Mark sucks. Lucas sucks even more than Mark. Oh, and here’s Deb. She walks in, flips off a couple coworkers, walks into the bathroom, and luckily there’s some scissors and a pair of clippers so she can become the manic pixie dreamgirl. Let me check: stoner, overly serious douche, sad sack love-lorn hero, clear virgin, clearer not-a-virgin, and… begrudging elder who tolerates them all. Trope bingo! Trope bingo!
  • How many f’n kids work in this store? If it’s making $9k a day… it’s a front for the mob. The store is in Delaware, for Christ’s sake! 
  • If Mark names his band Marc, I’ll change my name. I don’t want any association with that abject goober. Each time he breaks the fourth wall to yell at the camera, I pray for an aneurysm. Him or me. Either works. 
  • Oh! I get it. Hot chicks in their underwear. 
  • FINE. I ADMIT IT. I LAUGHED at Rex Manning joining the shoplifter for the photo shoot. I also was popping for the polaroid camera. Sue me.
  • Shoplifter’s life would peak once he discovered Limp Bizkit. Tell me I’m wrong.
  • HOW MANY EFFIN PEOPLE WORK HERE? Jane, who I thought worked for Rex Manning as a PA… works… for the store? Or for Joe? And “metal-hair torn sleeves guy” snickers. I’m running out of mental space for all these 1 note characters.
  • OK. And in apropos of nothing, here’s a music break until we get Mitch. *checks notes* Oh! Now we have our out-of-touch douchebag trope. Check. OK. And we get the tiniest shade of grey for overworked, beloved, surrogate dad to all these misfits, Joe, protecting Lucas. Awwwwwww.

Bold worthless prediction: Rex Manning gives Joe the money needed to convince Mitch to partner with him and keep Empire Records as-is; with a staff of young idiots, clearly cleaning money for the Atlantic City mob.

• • Wait. So Liv Tyler has more than one note (“whispering waif”)? If she wanted to give Rex Manning lunch in literally any other thing I’ve seen her in, I might have thought she was more than set dressing. Damn!
  • (Doing the math…) This movie dropped in September of 1995. I would have been starting 8th grade. 8th grade me would openly mock anyone who felt tethered to this movie. I also secretly probably denoted I was closest to Lucas in terms of personality. 
  • Hold up. Record scratch. I paused the movie and needed to Google this. Empire Records was written by a woman, Carol Heikkinen. It was directed by a man, Allan Moyle. Unclear how old Liv Tyler — or her character— was in this flick… but JESUS CHRIST. Let Rex Manning eat.
  • OK. Well, I learned my lesson. Don’t pause to denote your fatherly rage. Rex is a creep. Also… what exactly was Corey’s plan? Reveal her underwear, so Rex could… kiss her? And great timing AJ. Next time, you lead with the pencil sketch!
  • No wonder Joe needs nineteen idiots as staff. Corey isn’t covering the customers. AJ’s painting outside. Gina is celebrating Rex Manning (who is now NOT at his table!). Lucas is nowhere to be seen. Debra was making buttons. WHO IS COVERING THE FLOOR, PEOPLE!? OK, and then they all are all back on the floor so folks can have a dance party. Get em, Joe!
  • Sweet Jesus. Pizza guy works there too?!
  • “Have I fired anyone today?” no. But you did… uhh… assault Lucas. I mean, correctly, mind you. Also, it turns out you’ve collected a bunch of — IS DEBRA PISSING IN FRONT OF COREY?!
  • I hate Mark so much. 
  • “I’m either going to jail or hell. Not sure which one’s worse.” … me, realizing there’s still 25 minutes left.
  • “Joe, we’re all going to come off the floor to give Deb a fake funeral. Don’t worry, we left the idiot in charge up front.”
  • So. Warren. And… he’s got a gun… and… job… and.. Now they’re throwing money in…and… I want to go home.
  • Why, in the blue hell is LUCAS the one “calling the shots”??
  • “Holy crap!” says the screenwriter. “I only have 10 minutes left and I need an ending!” So, cue the montage, and a chance to wrap up each one-note character with a perfect and specific ending. Someone finished “Screenwriting for Dummies”! 
  • Credit where it’s due. All of Delaware came out for Gina’s debut. Also, Gina doesn’t quite understand that standing in the middle of the band, and singing, IS fronting a band. 
  • Corey, for someone who was presented as smart… screaming at street level OVER a band and crowd screaming? You’re dumb. And then you go to the roof to assault AJ. You’re super dumb. 
  • AJ’s going to art school, so he’ll be back working in the store in four years. Trust me.

The love-lorn fool got the girl. The slut got to be the slut who fronted a band. The idiot who stole nine thousand dollars got away with it because the stoner decided to throw a rager. The idiot juvenile delinquent got a job and parole, apparently. The suicidal manic pixie dreamgirl just apparently got over it. And in the end, they all danced like jackasses on the roof. That tracks.

I also went ahead after finishing the flick to read some IMDB trivia. Seems the writer cribbed a lot of the anecdotes and beats of the movie when she worked at Tower Records. Empire Records was written somewhere in the early nineties, and then released in 1995. To that I’d say the following:

Around the same time this movie was written… up in New Jersey, Kevin Smith turned his daily-life-angst into Clerks. That movie is, was, and will be everything this film attempted to be, but did it better in every conceivable way. And five years later… Nick Hornby and Steven Frears remade this movie, called it “High Fidelity”, and corrected every error I just sat through. But I digress.

I wholly understand and respect why people are enamored with Empire Records. It’s a hot mess of stereotypes, zingy dialogue, and the kind of infectious energy and (yes, seriously) optimism a generation used to have for terrestrial retail establishments. The Empire Records of this movie harkens back to a handful of similarly seminal haunts my friends and I frequented in our formative years. I have little doubt that the generation(s) who caught this film when it debuted attached a small bit of their id to the film — same as the generation before them did for The Breakfast Club. Me, now a forty-four year old certified grouch, simply couldn’t lay my arms down long enough to find the same love so many of my friends have for the flick. I suppose there’s really only one person to blame.

Damnit, Mark. You really do suck.