Empire Records

This article says Empire Records is a bad movie and gives a lot of reasons why. I agree with almost everything it says. But I still find the movie a joy to watch and wouldn’t change a thing—maybe longer scenes of Renée Zellweger in her short skirt, but that’s more a compliment than a criticism. What I conclude is that it’s a bad version of some other movie we can imagine despite being an excellent version of the movie it actually is. I judge art mainly by how much I like it. It doesn’t have to he popular with people smarter or more cultured than me. Doesn’t have to be popular at all. Doesn’t have to be deep, doesn’t have to be disturbing, doesn’t have to be difficult. Just has to please me. Empire Records does, every time I watch it. I think it must please many viewers. Seems to me that makes it a movie no one call in fairness call a bad movie, but just a movie they don’t like. 

Replying to someone who says the article is typical of millennials — 

I haven’t noticed those attitudes to be unique to millennials, or even characteristic of them. But the essay at any rate is a kind I’ve seen all my life—someone saying very seriously and in detail why some movie or book is bad for not being some different movie or book. Orange lovers pooh-poohing apples for not being oranges. Every generation has people like that. Today’s millennials who think that way probably got it from us. ~ Oct. 28, 2018 / On Facebook (1) 

1. Empire Records (Anthony LaPaglia, Liv Tyler, Renée Zellweger, Dir. Allan Moyle)