While Fast Times told us how it was, Empire Records told us how it wanted it to be. Perhaps no other example on this list better exemplifies the disparity of the teen movie as its own, disconnected sub-genre. Like musicals and horror movies, teen comedies aren't supposed to play to audiences of all ages. And all you have to do is compare its critical score on Rotten Tomatoes (a paltry 24%) to its audience score (an adoring 84%) to understand that some of the best movies of the genre end up as cult classics. There are certainly elements of the John Hughes dynamics present in the coming-of-age mini-stories that form the true heart and soul of Empire Records - the brutally honest romantic tries to woo the naive good girl with a taste for bad boys, the sexually adventurous popular girl is at odds with the repressed outsider who shaves her head, the stoner doofus and the overly philosophical sage are just kinda...there. But those touchstones don't overshadow the singular, misshapen, haphazard documentation of teen strife from inside the walls of an independent record store. Empire Records didn't have a unique premise or a particularly distinctive view on the growing pains of adolescence. It also didn't have the most prestigious cast or a big, idiosyncratic climax. All it had was a simple story, solid chemistry between the actors, and endlessly quotable dialogue. As it turns out, that's really all you need.
