Maxwell Caulfield

Empire Records is a small independent record shop managed by Joe Reaves (Anthony LaPaglia). His employees are all high school students and young adults. Like the employees, the store is eclectic and unique. The staff is very much a self-created family, with Joe as the disinclined and perpetually exasperated father figure. Joe selects Lucas (Rory Cochrane) to close the store for the first time. While counting the days receipts, Lucas discovers Empire Records is about to be converted into a branch of Music Town, a large and generic franchise music store. Lucas has an epiphany, and in an attempt to save the store, takes the day's cash receipts to Atlantic City. While initially very lucky, he loses the entire amount. The next morning, Mark (Ethan Embry) and AJ (Johnny Whitworth) find Lucas asleep behind the store, still perched on his motorcycle, and quickly deduce that Lucas has made a grievous mistake while entrusted with the store money. Lucas adopts a bizarre, almost zen-like attitude towards his actions. AJ and Mark feign ignorance as to the missing money when Joe discovers the night deposit was never made, and the money is missing. Joe is distracted from dealing with this immediate crisis due to a scheduled publicity stunt. Rex Manning (Maxwell Caulfield), a pompous, fading pop singer, is due to arrive to sign autographs and promote his new album "Back with More". No one is really looking forward to "Rex Manning Day" except cashier Corey (Liv Tyler), an overachieving student headed for Harvard University who has a schoolgirl crush on Rex, and plans to lose her virginity to him. Corey's best friend and fellow cashier Gina (Renée Zellweger), a more adventurous and free spirit than Corey, encourages Corey in her pursuit of the much older Manning. Empire Records' owner, Mitchell Beck (Ben Bodé), arrives to collect the missing deposit, but Joe covers for Lucas and plays for time by handing Mitchell a bag full of loose receipts. AJ confides in Joe that he loves Corey, and has chosen Rex Manning Day as the day he tells her. Lucas returns and rather than show repentance or guilt, calmly and repeatedly insists that everything will somehow work out, much to Joe's growing confusion and frustration. Joe expressly forbids Lucas to leave the store (or even the couch in the break room) until he is able to repay the $9,000. Debra (Robin Tunney), another store employee, arrives on time. As usual, she is hostile and anti-social to the rest of the staff. She immediately locks herself in the bathroom, where she impulsively shaves her head. As she exits the bathroom, AJ sees that her wrists are bandaged and she admits that she attempted suicide. It's revealed that Berko (Coyote Shivers), a local rock musician and another store employee, has just broken up with her, but Debra insists that he wasn't the reason for her suicide attempt. A young shoplifter who identifies himself only as Warren Beatty (Brendan Sexton III) is apprehended outside the store by Lucas. Soon after, Rex Manning arrives with his assistant Jane (Debi Mazar). Manning is condescending toward Joe, the rest of the staff, and his fans. After demanding (at the top of her lungs) that she be allowed to bring Rex his lunch, Corey awkwardly attempts to seduce him during his lunch break. When Manning responds with a crude pass, Corey runs off, crying in embarrassment. A lovesick AJ finally attempts to tell Corey how he feels about her. Emotionally overwhelmed by her encounter with her idol, Corey tells AJ that she cannot handle his admission. Crushed, AJ abandons his plan. When Corey later attempts to assuage AJ's feelings by telling him she doesn't think of him that way, he rebuffs her. In the meantime, both Joe and Berko attempt to reach out to Debra, who refuses to explain her behavior or the circumstances that led to her bandaged wrists. Debra buries herself in work, but is clearly upset. As the afternoon progresses, the plan to convert Empire Records into a Music Town is revealed, and Joe admits that he had hoped to buy out Mitchell. However, Joe will now have to use his money to replace what Lucas lost, and Empire Records is now doomed to become a Music Town. Joe finally pummels Lucas in frustration. The afternoon continues to spiral downward. Corey accuses Gina of encouraging her ill-advised behavior around Rex, implying Corey's effort to emulate Gina's promiscuity was Gina's idea and ultimately at fault for the failed seduction, and that Corey doesn't have to 'behave that way' around men. Outraged at the accusation and seeking to hurt Corey, Gina seduces Rex Manning, much to the horror of her friends. AJ attacks Rex, who angrily leaves after getting in a lucky punch against AJ. When Corey confronts her, calling her a slut, Gina retaliates by revealing Corey's secret amphetamine habit, which helps her stay up all night studying. Corey has a hysterical episode and has to be physically restrained by Joe and her friends. Uncharacteristically, Debra shows sympathy towards the always perfect Corey having a near meltdown and helps calm her down. After hearing about Debra's suicide attempt, Corey arranges a "funeral" for her where all her friends gather around and say they will miss her and talk about what they love about her. Lucas reveals that Joe actually rescued him from the orphanage as a teen, and was trying to repay him for his kindness. Debra admits she tried (and failed) to kill herself with a disposable razor...with a moisturizing strip. During the mock funeral, Warren returns with a gun and holds up the store. Debra boldly confronts Warren, confusing him and distracting him from his plan, and the rest of the staff persuade Warren into admitting that he only returned because he because he felt kinship with the rest of the misfits in the store, leading Joe to offer him a job. After the police leave, Lucas admits defeat, and suggests calling Mitchell. However, his friends and co-workers (along with Jane, who has quit working for Rex), pool their resources to replace the missing money. Despite their best efforts, they are thousands short. Suddenly inspired, Mark runs out of the store and impulsively jumps in front of a news crew covering the hold up and announces a late-night benefit party/concert to "Save the Empire". Between AJ's art, various money raising efforts by the rest of the staff, a rooftop concert featuring Berko and Gina (who is finally fulfilling her longtime ambition to front a band), enough is made to replace the money Lucas lost. Joe and Lucas return the money to Mitchell, and promptly quit. Appalled at the debacle and the prospect of managing the store without Joe, Mitchell offers to sell it to him...cheap. Joe agrees. Corey tells AJ that she really also does love him, but that she now hates him for waiting so long to tell her how he feels. AJ tells her he has quit the store, and has been accepted to an art school in Boston, and they finally kiss. The movie ends with Joe, Jane and the rest of the staff ending the long day with a dance party on the roof only before the closing credits begin. Underneath the closing credits, Mark and a local pizza restaurant employee and friend, Eddie, discuss rock music while sitting on the curb outside the store.

It is September 1961; a new academic year is just beginning at Rydell High School. The Pink Ladies are now led by Stephanie Zinone (Michelle Pfeiffer), who feels she has. "outgrown" her relationship with the arrogant leader of The T-Birds, Johnny Nogerelli (Adrian Zmed) during summer break. A new arrival comes in the form of clean-cut English student Michael Carrington (Maxwell Caulfield), the cousin of Sandy Olsson. Michael quickly becomes smitten with Stephanie, despite the gentle warning of the sole remaining lead character from the first film, Frenchy (Didi Conn), who is returning to Rydell High to get her diploma was told about Michael's arrival in a letter from Sandy and helps Michael get settled into the school atmosphere as Sandy's behest. Michael likes Stephanie, but Frenchy tells him that she will not date him since he is not a T-Bird. At the local bowling alley, a competitive game ('Score Tonight') turns sour due to the animosity between Johnny and Stephanie. Johnny flirts with Stephanie's friend and fellow Pink Lady, Paulette Rebchuck (Lorna Luft), to make Stephanie jealous, and she retaliates by kissing the next man who walks in the door, which happens to be Michael. Bemused by this unexpected kiss, Michael attempts to ask her out the next day at an audition for the school talent show but discovers that she has a very specific vision of her ideal man ('Cool Rider'). He realizes that he will only win her affection if he turns himself into a cool rider and begins saving up for a motorcycle by selling completed homework assignments to the academically challenged T-Birds. Michael buys the bike, fixes it up and spends all his spare time after school learning to ride it. A gang of rival motorcyclists called the Cycle Lords surprise the T-Birds at the bowling alley. Before the fight starts, a lone anonymous biker, wearing all black clothing as well as a motorcycle helmet and dark goggles to cover his face, appears and defeats the enemy gang, performing impressive stunts and leaping over police cars to disappear into the night. Stephanie is instantly fascinated with the stranger. The following day at school, Frenchy tells Michael about that motorcycle chase and a strange guy swept Zinone out of her bobby socks. Michael confides in Frenchy he's the one and just as he was about to tell Frenchy his game plan, Zinone and the other Pink Ladies come into the room. That's when Michael attempts to tell Stephanie that he is the "Cool Rider" but becomes tongue-tied. Frenchy notices a patch on Rhonda's nose. She is also wearing glasses similar to the ones Dinah Manoff wore at one point during the first movie when she played Marty. In a short comic scene, one of the T-Birds, Louis DiMucci (Peter Frechette), attempts to trick his sweetheart Sharon (Maureen Teefy) into losing her virginity to him by taking her to Michael's uncle's fallout shelter and faking a nuclear explosion, but the plan backfires and she runs off in horror. Stephanie is surprised again by the Cool Rider while working at her after school job at her family's gas station, and they enjoy a romantic twilight motorcycle ride. Just as Michael is about to reveal his identity, they are interrupted by the arrival of the T-Birds and the Pink Ladies; before Michael disappears again, he tells Stephanie that he will see her at the talent show, in which the Pink Ladies and T-Birds are performing. Stephanie wonders how the Cool Rider knew about the talent show but fails to deduce it could be a Rydell High School student since only they knew about the show. Johnny, enraged by Stephanie's new romance, threatens to fight the "Cool Rider" if he sees him with her again, and the group has an argument about who belongs to whom. At school, Stephanie's poor grades in English lead her to accept Michael's offer of help with her essay on Shakespeare's Hamlet, but although she has warmed to him considerably, he still cannot reveal his double identity. Stephanie has begun to realize that, despite his shy, bookworm outward appearance, Michael is a kind, good guy who genuinely cares about her. She then slowly begins to discover that she has similar feelings for him and starts to reciprocate his crush. These events are not lost on their mutual acquaintances, and Johnny demands that Stephanie quit the Pink Ladies for his "rep" and subtly threatens that the T-Birds will beat up Michael if she refuses. Stephanie is visibly upset by this but refuses to quit the Pink Ladies. Although still head over heels for the Cool Rider, interactions with Michael reveal that she has become smitten with him as well. The night of the talent show, Stephanie and the Cool Rider meet outside the school, but are instantly ambushed by the T-Birds who pursue Michael in a motorcycle chase, with Stephanie and the Pink Ladies following in a car. They pursue him to a closed-off construction site which conceals a deadly drop, and the biker's absence suggests that he has perished below, leaving Stephanie inconsolable thinking her Cool Rider is dead although both the T Birds & Pink Ladies try to convince her that he must have survived and made the jump and will show up again. The T-Birds tie up the competition for their act in the boy's locker room and drench them in the showers to ensure their winning. During the Pink Ladies' number ('A Girl For All Seasons'), Stephanie is overcome and stops singing her part and sinks to the stage floor. Oblivious to the audience, she enters a dreamlike fantasy world where she is reunited with her mystery biker in a sort of "biker heaven" backdrop ('Love Will Turn Back The Hands Of Time'). As her reverie finishes, it appears she has been singing a solo; she is duly named winner of the contest, and crowned the queen of the upcoming luau, with Johnny hailed as king. The school year ends with the graduation luau the next day ('Rock-A-Hula Luau') during which Johnny and Stephanie later engage in another argument while being carried onto the pool in a floating throne. The Cycle Lords suddenly appear and begin to destroy the celebration but are stopped by the emergence of the Cool Rider, much to the surprise of Stephanie. After roundly defeating the Cycle Lords and leaping over the pool on his motorcycle, he finally reveals himself to all in attendance to be Michael. After his initial shock, Johnny offers him a T-Bird jacket and welcomes him into the gang. All of the couples pair off (Michael/Stephanie, Johnny/Paulette, Lewis/Sharon, Davey/Dolores & Rhonda/Goose.