I hit a Buzzfeed article about someone rewatching Empire Records (which I did the other day) and I thought I'd get a decent review/think piece on the movie. No. Turns out this girl just gets to watch the movie, make a numbered list of chronological thoughts and preface it with a copypasta paragraph as to what the article was about.
I agreed with her points but felt ripped of. I would've sat there just typing shit out then weeded out anything that was extraneous or stupid. She also agreed about some of my points on the Craft and wished they'd basically have ended it the way they did in the second movie with "girl power" moves. I hate the ableism at the end but at the time it was still an iconic ending, and yeah, it inspired me to try and do spells and give up vampires and just be into witchcraft for the rest of high school. I think I liked the aesthetic but me idolising my friend's mother, who was a total delusional crackpot who didn't even seem to have a job, was really naive of me. And my friend wasn't very smart either, I can say everyone else was a gullible idiot but I was too.
I was more pissed to find out I could have a job at Buzzfeed doing this but my pay would still be dependent on clicks. And maybe she suggested the pitch in a meeting and wanted to do full reviews, and her boss was like no, we only do numbered lists at Buzzfeed. When we're not cosplaying as serious journos.
I had to come here and write that out, I was annoyed but still roped in anyway, and it was nice to see my thoughts were the same. Empire Records is a fucking mess of a movie, Pump up the Volume at least had a story line, this basically doesn't and it's a day in the life movie, there's no plot, which I think made it stand out because it was so bizarre and idealistic of teenage life in a record store. As an adult, you're just Joe at this point questioning these kids and rolling your eyes whenever they lose their shit. (Seriously, watch Joe's face when Corey goes off, he's just "Kill me, please.") But he was convincing in his sincerity these kids matter to him. Anthony LaPaglia was a weird one to export to the US in the 90s but he's great in this. Everyone is entertaining, I even had a brief argument with someone at school over Robin Tunney wearing a wig in the Craft because she did actually shave her head. It suited her, her whole character is genuinely the best, she's weirdly aspirational compared to Corey or Gina, you want to be hot and pretty like Corey with Deb's attitude. Meanwhile, Renee Zellweger in this is actually kind of awful, when she's toned down she's okay, and her throwing pills at Corey is iconic too, but some points she's really overdoing it with the trying to be a snarky teen, some of her lines are cringe, even Sinead O' Rebellion is just ugh now, it was the biggest line in the movie. Oh, and "Joe's Money" is good. Ugh, I'm torn over her. (I still wander around the house saying this whenever I hear about a greedy corporation doing questionable shit for profit. Having to work for a non-profit who gave money to profit based companies while people were just delusional as to why they were getting greedy, this was my only way of making humour out of it.) AJ, Lucas and Warren playing off each other makes for good comedy but again without a story the movie's like a bunch of vignettes trying to get the character development done. It doesn't make the movie unwatchable just messy. Marc's still pretty great, but when you met that guy in real life, he was such a pain in the ass, as well as Eddy. Bronco's just there. And I found out later people were creeped out by how old he was vs the rest of the cast, and he was Liv Tyler's stepdad too apparently. What, do you want Steven Tyler in his place? Actually, no hate to Steven, he's actually a nice guy who sang lullabies to Tori's kid*. Also, chemistry-wise, Deb and AJ smolder in that one scene they're dancing together, like that is pure hotness, and his chemistry with Corey is kinda mid. You also don't see them on screen enough, I think there's a whole thing with them on a pier that got cut out, so you just see AJ pining over an oblivious Corey without any real reason as to why other than he just has a big crush and they look like they'd make a cute couple. And they were always in love anyway. They needed more time developing that, again I think it was cutting room floor material. Maybe we didn't need to see Marc wasted watching GWAR but that scene is also iconic.
It also just occurred to me Deb and Lucas are the smartest characters in the movie, even Lucas losing all the money it's still based on insight and concern that comes off as foolishness, he thinks it's noble to try and save the store. Deb passes out buttons that basically predict the future by being insightful, especially Corey's button, since she's completely dishonest. Deb's the only one who can logically help Corey with her meltdown, I like their scene in the bathroom, it's almost like Claire and Alison's moment in the Breakfast Club, they find some mutual understanding but it doesn't turn into a cheesy hallmark moment, like Deb says; she's not a hugger, you're not going to get emotions from her but Corey's "funeral" at least allows her to finally accept sympathy and love and allows her to be vulnerable. I love how she's still holding it all in when she talks about the lady Bic incident, it's absurd but it's not funny. She's clearly embarrassed but nobody really mocks her. It's a weird way of everyone dealing with the aftermath of the tension but it's not a terrible scene. Yeah, the Buzzfeed girl found it questionable to mimic a funeral for a suicidal person, I don't think it's that bad, the whole point is to make her feel seen. It's a good play on how 13 Reasons glorified people committing suicide for revenge, maybe if they'd held a fake funeral for Hannah Baker things would've been okay. It seems to be self aware that it's a confessional more than a funeral and Deb just lies there impatiently until all the honesty from people make her give up her own hypocrisy and admit she needs someone to care about her. We've all been Deb, it's why people love her character, (well, I did) Robin Tunney was such an underrated 90s actor, I think she just wasn't conventionally pretty but her acting was amazing. I remember seeing her in something with Arnold and it was a pretty trash movie but I loved the story at least. Ugh, I also forgot she was in Encino Man too. Anyway, Lucas is apparently acting "weird" all day and basically the group's substitute Yoda, I don't really understand he wasn't like that yesterday either, was he just less Yoda? He's still a fun character to follow, him being chill with Joe is fun, he's got a lot to work with and he's not really the bad guy, he's also seeing things the other's are delusional to, Corey's not fine obviously, it's actually pretty sad AJ can't see it, again his crush is entirely based on her positive attributes, you feel like him discovering her drug addiction would've elicited more concern, the Buzzfeed lady also pointed out nobody even bothers to address this at all. We're left to concede she's not Little Miss Perfect and that's the end of that, yeah again, really irresponsible but also 90's movie. Hell, not to reference Breakfast Club, we still get some catharsis after Brian admits to being suicidal, laughing at the situation isn't that insensitive it's more they're acknowledging the absurdity of a flare gun being used in a suicide, it's like trying to shoot yourself with a firecracker, it's dangerous though but of course Brian's too much of a geek to find access to a real gun (if you remade the movie, it wouldn't be a stretch that Brian's parents are conservative enough to own a gun he could easily access), it's absurd as Deb trying to cut herself up with a shitty plastic razor and failing. There's a shot of a messed up locker at the start, each locker belongs to a character, maybe you're supposed to assume it's Bender's but his is obvious. (Someone on Reddit complained Brian's mother paid no attention to the fact he was suicidal. Sometimes you have to explain to younger kids mental health basically didn't exist in the 80s. John Hughes tried to draw attention to how badly kids were treated for being kids). I could sit here all day doing intertextual comparisons to different movies, I'm pretty good at it. I lost the thread of Lucas being a smarter character than the others in the store, we don't know anything about him until the fake funeral and his motivations weren't selfish, he's found a weird way to pay Joe back for taking him in, it's sweet but I can see it making no sense logically when Joe should've called the cops from the start. That he doesn't is part of the vague as fuck story we get, at least Warren is the voice of reason telling Joe Lucas is the bigger thief. He's cast really well, he looks more age appropriate than the others. But every time I keep trying to consider Lucas it's only in the context of how he relates to the others. Maybe he's the narrative glue holding the group together the way music holds the world together, he clearly considers them a family however we have to acknowledge this is their senior year job and everyone's about to split to go on to other shit eventually. The store's the main character. It's fine. This movie is fine.
I can see why my brother hated it and I loved it, it fell into this weird pocket of 90s films that were affected by where you were developmentally, plus I had no film critique ability (well, I had some but it was minor), so I was going off the vibe. It's a cult classic for my age group, really.
Addendum: I just wrote an addendum to this and lost it, but I was trying to get through this with horrible sensory issues and couldn’t deal with it, I went back now it’s not as bad, but I can definitely see how Gen Xers hated this and millennials kinda ate it up, it was younger Gen Xers trying to convince them music is everything but at least the message was it’s okay for you to be scared about graduating. I was in grade 10 when it came out but I don’t remember appreciating it like that.
*This is the second time an asshole has let my girl Tori down. Steven wasn’t immune to the groupie exploitation back in the 70s but he took it to ridiculous
No comments:
Post a Comment