The movie association game continued tonight as Greg and I were finally going to get to Rainman through Tom Cruise, but unfortunately, things didn't go as expected. The plan was to watch both Empire Records and Jerry Maguire which would get us to Rainman and then to Straw Dogs (Liv Tyler > Renee Zellweger > Tom Cruise > Dustin Hoffman). But, as usual, things didn't go as planned. We were going to watch Empire Records directly after the Michigan came which I had planned to watch all week - I mean, what's better than Michigan State vs. Michigan? So as I watched Michigan mount an amazing comeback, scoring 17 points in the last 6 1/2 minutes to tie the game and force overtime, what happens on the local ABC station? They switch me over to the USC game - which is somewhat predictable as the LA market does deserve the USC game. But come on...we've got overtime and I can't even watch it on TV? Well, luckily, I have Sirius Satellite Radio and they had the Michigan game on channel 102 today, so as Greg and I headed to Fry's Electronics (I couldn't find my copy of Empire Records on DVD and I wanted to get the Special Edition (aka the "Remix! Special Fan Edition)) we listened to the game as it went to three overtimes and Michigan prevailed. So once again, Sirius rocks.

We got back, listened to Michigan win and watched the Remix! Special Fan Edition which has 16 minutes of extra footage and then went to grab some grub before watching Jerry Maguire. Well, wouldn't you know...after not being able to find Empire Records earlier in the day, I couldn't find Jerry Maguire now (though it could be in my storage shed because I had just printed a new cover for it (I have the compulsion to transfer all DVDs in boxes to keep cases)). With very few options left to branch off of Empire Records (we couldn't use Liv Tyler and Greg didn't want to watch Cold Mountain or Chicago from Renee Zellweger), we went with a classic piece of crap, Godzilla (1998). How did we get from Empire Records to Godzilla? Well, none other than Ben Bode. Who, you ask? Yes...Mitchell from Empire Records and Radio Technician #3 in Godzilla. A bit of a stretch? Perhaps...but our options were limited without Jerry Maguire to fill in the gap. Next up: Ronin as we follow Jean Reno from Godzilla...

So...we've done the following movie association (in reverse order):

Godzilla (1998) (Ben Bode and Jean Reno)
Empire Records (Liv Tyler and Ben Bode)
Armageddon (Owen Wilson and Liv Tyler)
Permanent Midnight (Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson)
Keeping the Faith (Edward Norton and Ben Stiller)
Rounders (Edward Norton - Starting Film)

URL: Empire Records (1995)