Empire Records
Empire Records is my favorite 90s movie, my favorite movie-that-takes-place-in-one-day, my favorite movie about youth, my favorite movie involving music. It has one of my favorite soundtracks, one of my favorite diegetic musical performances, one of my favorite love stories, and many of my favorite quotes. It also perfectly demonstrates the dichotomy that exists in my mind between "favored" and "good." Empire Records, may be my favorite movie of all time. It at least cracks my top ten. But it wouldn't even make it to One Thousandth place in a "Best Films" list. Also, as you may have guessed, it involves food!
Pictured, left, is Renee Zellweger (Gina) holding an orange M&M in one hand, a box of M&M's in her other. What she's doing here is conducting a food-driven lottery of which Empire Records (a record store) employee gets to pick the music for that morning. Since she has drawn an orange M&M, whichever employee also draws an orange gets to make the musical selections.
It's a pretty adorable store-opening ritual: if one has to have a retail job, they should aspire to work somewhere like Empire Records.
It's a pretty adorable store-opening ritual: if one has to have a retail job, they should aspire to work somewhere like Empire Records.
The ritual demonstrates the power food has in bringing people together. While, on the one hand, food serves a practical, necessary, survivalist purpose, it also gathers families at meal times, gives a common interest to rivaling cultures, and, in this case, provides the Empire Records gang with a unifying morning ritual. Even if this ritual, like food at large, immediately serves a practical purpose, it is also a grander indication of how close the staff is. It provides a filmic representation of the power food has to bring people together, and establishes to us in the opening moments of the film, through something so seemingly insignificant as candy-coated chocolate, how tight-knit this gang is.
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