Movies in a Minute: Empire Records

Sadako: "Welcome to Empire Records, or as I like to refer to it, One Day in the Life of Several Self Absorbed Hipsters."

Woman: "Excuse me, excuse me. I need to buy this CD--

Lucas: "We have it on vinyl. It sounds way better."

Woman: "Er, then why do you sell it on CD?"

Lucas: "To snicker at people who don't know any better. Hey, we've only got a few more years till iTunes shuts us down for good so we takes our pleasures where we can."

Woman: "Thanks."

Lucas: "Hmm. My employer has given me the chance to close up the record store for the night. So I'm going to quote Jim Morrison and then try to double his earnings in Atlantic City to buy back the store from the evil corporation that's going to make us stop being indie. Oops. I lost it all. I wonder if I'll be held responsible."

Sadako: "If you are, don't worry about it--I picked you up some applications for Championship Vinyl and Quick Stop."

A.J.: "Hey, I'm the floppy haired artist. Like Shawn Hunter except I paint. I'm going to tell my friend Corey that I love her today. Why? Because she's the smart hot girl, not the suicidal death camp survivor or the slut/singer/record store worker. It's kind of a default thing."

Mark: "I'm the annoying semi articulate metal head man-child. I have no plotline. I'm something of a mascot that functions as comic relief."

Corey: "I'm the Type-A Harvard bound bundle of nerves. I'm going to offer myself to washed up singer Rex Manning today in between coming up with witty insults for the losers buying music in our store! I even made cupcakes since it's REX MANNING DAY."

Gina: "God, you're a nerd--when did you have time to make these?"

Corey: "Old Man Meth says there's over 24 usable hours in every day."

Gina: "Oh, hi there, I'm the liberated slut who secretly wants to sing."

Joe: "Okay, I manage this store. Where's the money that should have been deposited?"

Lucas: "In Atlantic City. Recirculating."

Joe: "Oh. I'm going to cover for you since being a good businessman is filmspeak for evil. So you get a time out on the couch."

Sadako: "If only Bernie Madoff had worn a black turtleneck and spoken hipster lingo."

Deb: "Shaved off my hair, bitches."

Lucas: "Deb, you had hair when you went in there, right?"

A.J. "Wait, a bandage on your wrist? Did you try to kill yourself?"

Deb: "Well, how else am I supposed to convey I HAVE ISSUES? Anorexia's the domain of Type-A Corey, bragging about what a slut I am was taken, and the producers nixed heroin. Cutting myself in conspicuous places is the only thing I have left."

Lucas: "It's okay. She's fine. She's amazing. She's in the store picking up marketable skills like how to eviscerate a Little Mermaid soundtrack buying, twinset wearing mom with just one withering look."

Joe: "We're turning into a Music Town. I finally had enough money to make Mitch, the guy who owns us, an offer. But Lucas gambled away the money and now we're selling out."

Lucas: "Damn the man! Save the Empire! Screw hard work and effort! Up with feel good soundbites! "

Deb: "Music Town? We're going to have to be polite to the customers?"

Gina: "And cover our cute navels?"

Lucas: "Whoa. Shoplifter!"

A.J.: "Let's get a mug shot."

Warren: "Fuck you!"

Sadako: "Wow, you can add stealing to attempting to rape Dawn Weiner on your rap sheet, son."

Joe: "Just add him to the collection. Or arrest him, or something."

Berko: "Whoa. Are you okay, Deb? Do you want to...talk about it?"

Deb: "It's not about you. I just got home and thought of everything that was making me feel shitty and then I realized a tattoo or a safety pin piercing or even a bruise from your drunk dad might cut it as a screwed up kid accessory back in the day. But you need a self imposed burn or cut in the 90s to outdo John Bender."

Rex Manning: "Enough with the angst--I want my bottled water before I sign autographs for aging moms. And it's 1995 so asking for bottled water really does make me spoiled. Saratoga Spring Water or nothing."

Joe: "Hi Deb."



Deb: "Just doing the quarterly income tax reports."

Joe: "Hmm...all the self-harm, do you want me to get you a Suicide Girls photo shoot or call your mom or something?"

Debra: "If you see my mother, let me know, I'd like to talk to her."

Joe: "Er. Just the photo shoot then. You're doing a heck of a job there, Deb."

Sadako: "Note to self. When running a business, don't hire accountants or illegals--just go straight to the underage inmates of Girl, Interrupted."

Corey: "Joe? I'm taking Rex his lunch now."

Joe: "Berko's doing that."

Corey: "Joe, I'M POPPING MY CHERRY NOW. Kay, bye!"

Corey: "I used to love you on the Family Way, Mr. Manning. So...um...would you um...go to bed with me?"

Rex: *unzip* "Okay, kid. Hope you like the taste of blue cheese."

Corey: "Uh. Where are the unicorns and candles and strategically placed roses?! I have to go now. Bye."

A.J.: "Corey! There you are. I love you and your adorably unisexed name."

Corey: "Not now, A.J. I just threw myself at an aging rock star."

A.J. "Wow. And I thought Gina had daddy issues."

Corey: "Let's just be friends. I mean, I'm so beautiful and alluring I'm kind of doing you a favor just letting you exist near me."

Gina: "Corey, don't worry, it's okay. We'll get you another guy."

Corey: "I don't want another guy. I'm not like you. I don't throw myself at men--I'm just supposed to toss my hair while they confess they've been in love with me since five minutes before they met me, not offer me knee pads for performing oral."

Gina: "Did you go off and act all perfect, Corey? You think guys LIKE you for that?"

Corey: "At least I don't go do it with Scientology trolls who go off and laugh at me. I'm a nice, respectable girl."

Sadako: "Liv, I'm not going to call you a hypocrite, but I am going to place this copy of Aerosmith's Crazy video on the table, and I'm just going to call it Exhibit A, kay?"

Gina: "I can't believe she thinks I'm a slut. I'll show her who's the slut--now where's the nearest thing with a dick?"

Rex: "How you doing?"

Gina: "I've always been able to guess what kind of underwear guys are wearing. I bet you're wearing a cum encrusted leopard thong."

Sadako: "Photocopier sex!"

Joe: "Gina, maybe you'd better go home."

Gina: "Am I fired?"

Joe: "No, have I fired anyone today? It might be best if you went home and hosed off, though."

Corey: "So that's how your life's going to be? You're going to screw every has-been till your tits fall down and they don't want you anymore?"

Sadako: "Corey, hon, I think you need an anatomy lesson."

Gina: "At least I don't hide what I am. At least I'm not some closet SPEED FREAK! Here's one for your perfect little face! And your perfect body! And your PERFECT life!"

Sadako: "Oh, Renee, you're past only dogs can hear you and well on your way to Joey Lauren Adams territory."

Joe: "It'll be fine, Corey, really."

Corey: "No, it's not FINE! Nothing's ever fine, Joe! I just ran out of speed and now I have to out scenery chew her, IT'S NEVER FINE!"

Deb: "Let me take care of her, Joe."

Joe: "It'll give me time to pace nervously and run my hands through my hair."

Deb: "Hey, it's okay, Corey. We all have problems. If you didn't have a socially relevant problem, Joe wouldn't sign your paychecks."

All: "Let's have a mock funeral for Deb."

Sadako: "Was buying her a Steven Levenkron book too expensive?"

Corey: "Maybe it's just the paint thinner I huffed as a downer, but I miss Gina. She's brave. She's not afraid to be who she wants to be. She's taken like eight HIV tests this year and never cried once."

Gina: "I'm back. And I'm not brave. I want to be a singer, but I'm afraid to because it's such a cliched and boring aspiration."

Sadako: "Go with that feeling."

Warren: "I'm back and I'm gonna shoot you guys up!"

Deb: "I got this one, too. Warren, give me the gun. I'm not afraid of you. You're not going to shoot me. This movie takes place like four years before Columbine stopped just being a word for a flower."

Lucas: "Joe, I think he needs to become a vacuous hipster, too."

Joe: "Here's your employee ID, Warren. Look us up when you get out of jail. Well. What are we gonna do about the store?"

A.J.: "I've got a quarter I didn't glue down when I was doing my art project."

Deb: "I've got a dime."

Mark: "Hey, hey--look, news camera. Excuse me, we're having a party tonight, to raise money to save Empire Records. Everyone come by tonight, it's gonna be awesome!"

Joe: "Uh, we're going to need a permit to serve beer in the street."

Lucas: "No, we won't, Joe, we're the good guys."

Sadako: "Where did the beer and brownies and music and smelly counterculturals come from?"

Lucas: "It doesn't have to make sense--it's a party."

Berko: "Go on, take the lead, Gina. You can do it."

Gina: "SUGAR HIGH!"

Sadako: "So that's how Chicago happened with Bridget Jones's off beat caterwauling and not Ann Reinking."

Evil Mitch: "Ugh, I thought I wanted this place, but I don't. It's...full of scenesters and love and angst, and I can't work a cash register. I'm selling it to you for cheap, Joe."

Joe: "Hear that, hipsters? You don't have to polite to the paying clientele!"



A.J.: "Hello, Corey."

Corey: "LISTEN TO ME! I'm gonna make this fast because the uppers are gonna wear off, but you are SMART and SO TALENTED and if you don't realize how awesome and great and original your art projects like gluing quarters to the floor of a dirty record store are, then you know nothing! And I do love you, I just didn't realize it was love and I'll never love anyone as much as I love you except for Old Man Meth."

A.J.: "I quit the record store. I'm going to art school. In Boston so I can be near you and your Jessi Spano esque freak outs."

Corey: "Kiss me, you fool!"

Everyone: "Dancing!"

In other news, you guys should totally check out my friend ali's contest. You can win an I Love New York t-shirt. Convince someone you're a tourist! Or just pretend to be a hipster. Either way, enter!

Movies in a Minute: The Nanny Diaries

Annie Braddock: "Because I'm so delightfully quirky, I'm going to pretend that my year as a nanny was my version of being Margaret Mead. It's my field work for my grad school applications, since I didn't have the drive to enter the Peace Corp."

Sadako: "Are you going to lecture us on the ins and outs of the Nacriema tribe, too?"

Annie: "Let's get on with the subject of this field diary--me! It started when I graduated college and my mom wanted me to go into finance."



Goldman Sachs: "So, Annie Braddock. Who are you?"

Annie: "Um...is the answer plastics?"

Mrs. X: "Excuse me...would you like to be my nanny? This is my cute son, Grayer."

Annie: "Mmm. Okay. I need to find myself, so okay. This is Mrs. ___. We're calling her Mrs. X because it's fieldwork."

Mrs. X: "Welcome to my life. You can tell I represent pure unadulterated class conflict because of my Hispanic maid, my high ceilinged apartment, and my designer wardrobe. Also I keep tofu cutlets in the fridge instead of Lunchables."



Grayer: "I want my old nanny!"

Annie: "Grayer--please unlock the apartment door now please."

Grayer: "No!"

Generic Cute Guy: "Heh. I can see your underwear."

Sadako: "Ah, the requisite cute boy sees me in embarrassing underwear situation. See also, Bridget Jones."

Annie: "In a tip of the hat to Sex and the City's Mr. Big, I'll call him Harvard Hottie. Plus, this is a field diary--must protect anonymity."

Sadako: "I hear Jane Goodall did the same thing in her field diary by calling the lead chimp in her troop Simian Sexpot."

Other nannies: "So why are you here, college graduate?"



Annie: "I guess this job just chose me...you know, I'm just finding myself, trying to decide which path to take, like am I thin enough to be the next Natalie Portman or am I more of a younger Christina Hendricks?"

Nanny: "Kid, I left my sick mother and son in a nondescript foreign country to come here and raise other people's children for minimum wage."

Annie: "That's so tough. My college did a seminar on that--Intersections of Exploitation: Women of Color Within the Dominant Paradigm. Do you mind if I quote you for my grad school admission essay?"

Mrs. X: (voiceover): "Please prepare Grayer French cuisine."

Annie: "Crap. Scratch that. We're having peanut butter out of the jar."

Grayer: "But Mommy says it has high fructose corn syrup."

Annie: "I grew up on it and I'm fine."

Sadako: "Yeah, look at those trotters--er, gams."

Grayer: "Daddy? Daddy?"

Mr. X: "Not now, sport. Daddy's got a big merger and/or acquisition."

Julie Andrews: "Dear, I think this is the part where you sing a song and the father consents to let the child accompany him to work."

Grayer: "Nanny, why do we have to dress up as Betsy Ross and George Washington for Daddy's company party?"

Annie: "So I can embarrass myself in front of my crush and so that the audience can see how evil your parents really are."

Harvard Hottie: "Heh. Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh--

Annie: "It's okay, glad I gave you a good laugh. No, I can push the elevator button myself. Didn't grow up with the staff doing everything for me."

Sadako: "Enter Betsy Ross, exit Becky Sharp."

Mrs. X: "Nanny, where have you been? You need to organize my shoe collection!"

Annie: "Mrs. X, er, I kind of had plans--

Mrs. X: "Well, cancel them. We're going to a Nanny conflict resolution seminar. But before we go, I need you to organize my stilettos and help me pick out a pair for tonight that makes me look both evil as well as elitist."

Annie: "Ugh, my job sucks."

Lynette: "Okay, can we not talk about that? You dragged me above 14th Street to hang with your pasty white ass in this tired old bar."

Annie: "It's not so bad."

Lynette: "Please, no piercings, no tats. Funky black girls from NYU are supposed to exist in a quirky but cute little two bedroom apartment downtown coming up with new ways to quietly differentiate ourselves from the mainstream whites. Like foshizz--that was my thing."

Annie: "Oh no."

Lynette: "Isn't that the guy you're into?"

HH: "Hey! Annie, come over here and meet my backwards-baseball-cap-wearing-future -investment-bankers-America-friends."



Friends: "You're a nanny? That's HOT. Are the moms hot? Are the dads hot for YOU?"

Annie: "You-know-who-the-dads-are-they're-you-in-five-years-so-enjoy-tonight-your-future-looks-fucking-bleak. There, guys, I emoted, now can I go back to my surly grunting already?"

Director Shari Springer Berman: "That'll do, pig."

Answering Machine: "You have two new messages."

HH: "Annie? I'm sorry my friends were assholes, so I want to take you out to apologize. I won't take no for an answer. I'll keep calling and I know where you live so I'll just camp outside your door till you agree, so you might as well get it over with."

Annie: "Stalking? And we haven't even been on our first date--I'm in love!"

Mrs. Braddock: "Annie? I'm coming to visit. I'm your mother and I don't care what excuse you have."

Annie: "Crap. My mom doesn't know I'm a live-in nanny. I know, I'll pretend that my apartment is Lynette's and that my roommate's out of town."

Sadako: "Worked for Eddie Murphy and Arsenio."

Mrs. X: "It's Grayer's birthday, so we've hired French mimes."

Sadako: "So this is who David Friedman got replaced with."

Mrs. X.: "And please work extra hard with Grayer. He didn't get into Collegiate so we're blaming you."

HH: "If you don't go out with me, I'll call in a bomb threat to the building. C'mon, it's just easier this way."

Annie: "Okay."

HH: "So if working for these people is so bad, why don't you quit. Just go find yourself backpacking in Europe or somewhere."

Annie: "That's easy for you to say--you've lived a charmed life. Upper East Side? Harvard?"

HH: "It wasn't all that nice. I was only given the half price Rolexes. Plus, my mom died and my dad didn't love me and I was mostly raised by nannies."

Oedipus Rex: "Anyone mind if I have a seat?"

HH: "Seriously, why don't you quit?"

Annie: "Well, I've gotten so attached to Grayer. And I feel sorry for her. Plus, I have to keep the plot from disintegrating, right?"

HH: "I think I'm going to deign to kiss you now."

Annie: "Even though I'm from Jersey? Okay."



Grayer: "Nanny, I'm sick!"

Annie: "Oh no."

Sadako: "Can we play a Triaminic ad?"

Mrs. Braddock: "His fever's come down. He'll be okay. I'm glad you called me. But Annie--you're...you're..."

Sadako: "Hey, it could be more degrading. She was this close to working at Goldman's."

Mrs. Braddock: "Why are you doing this? You're young, you're smart, you don't have a nails on the chalkboard Fran Drescher voice, you've got an incredibly bright future ahead of you--

Annie: "Mom, it was too bright, okay? I had to wear shades. I just needed to get away from it all!"

Mrs. X: "What's all this, what's all this?"

Annie: "Your son was really ill, we couldn't reach you at the spa, and my mother, the nurse, came to help. He's sleeping now."

Mrs. X: "Unless it'll hurt his chances of getting into the most exclusive kindergarten, I don't care."

HH: "Come on, quit. Let's take some time off, do some white kid soul searching at my house in the Hamptons. Drink wine, walks on the beach, grilling fresh fish, hitting up Whole Foods. Yuppie heaven."

Annie: "I can't. The X's are taking me and Grayer to Nantucket, and I can't deprive the audience of a climax now."



HH: "Fine. Be committed to your work. See if I care. Nobody loves Harvard Hottie."

Sadako: "Sweet, Nantucket!"

Generic rich bitch: "How's your nanny?"

Mrs. X "I had to install a nannycam. Things have gotten so bad."

Annie: "Shit. I hope she didn't see the time I went all Risky Business in the apartment after everyone went to the Met Gala."



Mr. X: "Any OJ?"

Annie: "Only from concentrate."



Mr. X: "I can't afford fresh squeezed with what I make? Just tell me there's no Merlot. Well, why don't you and I go down to the market and get us some more juice? Wink, wink, nudge, nudge."

Sadako: "He's hitting on her. How perverse. Poor Paul Giametti, how the mighty have fallen."

Annie: "Um. I-have-to-go-over-there-now-bye."



Mrs. X: "Where have you been? I expect you were off talking to that boy who lives in our building. He's called several times."

Annie: "Why didn't you tell me?"

Mrs. X: "He's a little out of your league don't you think? Ah, Shari, can I also insult her weight, her taste in clothes, and maybe get in a little yo momma action going on? I'm not sure the audience hates me enough. Oh, in case you haven't noticed--you're fired."

Annie: "Okay."



Grayer: "NOOO! NANNY!"



Annie: "Grayer-I'll-miss-you-bye."

Mrs. X: "Please have all your things out of the apartment before we come home."

Annie: "Okay, nanny cam time. Mr. and Mrs. X, you suck as parents, bye. Ugh. My face hurts from changing expressions. Does anyone on set have a muscle relaxant?"

Mrs. Braddock: "You're not going into finance, are you?"

Annie: "I just don't think money's the answer, Mom. It doesn't make things any easier. Oh--crap, missed call from my trust-fund Upper East Side boyfriend."

Annie (voiceover): "So you see, I decided to go into anthropology. No, not at Columbia. I just thought I'd sit outside the fountain here because the sun hitting the water really highlights my cheekbones."

HH: "Here's a letter from Mrs. X."

Mrs. X: "Annie. You were right. I've left my husband and decided to go Stepford Mom with Grayer, and I'm loving it."

Annie: "So you see. I was right. And I have a boyfriend straight out of an Abercrombie ad. Isn't life great?"

HH: "My dad's got Yankees tickets. Later you want to come over? Wear the Mary Poppins hat I bought you."