Wolff rating: MOSTLY HARMLESS
Plot summary: A bunch of kids work at a record store that might be bought out by a big chain.
Biased, pithy comments: Outside of Renee Zellweger and Liv Tyler wandering around in short skirts (or sometimes less, but hey, hold your horses, it's only PG-13) and a pretty good soundtrack, this movie offers little beyond some quick retorts that are few and far between. It's really too bad; a decent cast, good production values, and Rory Cochrane quipping like crazy, but alas, this movie mostly just sucks. Lots of needless teenage angst that made me long for more heartfelt (if nearly as shallow) angst in movies like ``The Breakfast Club.'' I was bored, I was amazed by stupidity, and the plot just lunged unsteadily from teen anxiety to teen anxiety, from drugs to suicide to virginity to slut-hood to ``selling out'' (whatever that means) to art school to overbearing parents (whom we never, ever see) to ditzy rock scenes. I guess I'm just not cool enough to work in a record store.
Other Notes: I have bad news for Joe; chains like Blockbuster and ``Music Town'' tend to crush their competition not by offering an inferior product, but by selling merchandise at a loss until their competitors go out of business, and then raising the prices.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Anthony LaPaglia, Maxwell Caulfield, Debi Mazar, Rory Cochrane, Renee Zellweger, Brendon Sexton Jr., Liv Tyler, Ethan Randall.
Directed by: Allan Moyle