Office Space

One of the best films of 1999 illustrates the changing way we see films. Office Space, directed by Beavis and Butt-Head creator Mike Judge, flopped at the box office, earning 12 million against its 10 million dollar budget. But it had new life in home media, becoming one of the biggest selling films in video cassette format, and then DVD. It is now recognized as a great comedy, one that is still relevant in its depiction of the soul-sucking aspects of corporate America.

The story is centered around Ron Livingston, who sits in a cubicle for Initech (one of the amusing charms of this film is to see 1999 computer technology) generating something called TPS reports (these are never explained, but its all anyone there seems to care for). During a session with a hypnotist, he gets completely relaxed, and doesn't care about work anymore, ignoring his passive-aggressive boss (a great Gary Cole) about coming in on the weekend.

With two of his colleagues (Dave Herman and Ajay Naidu) he plans to steal money from the company, a fraction of a cent at a time (the plan is admittedly from Superman III--"an underrated movie," Herman says) while he has a relationship with a waitress at one of those kitschy restaurants (Jennifer Aniston).

Office Space gets so many things right about work and how we hate it. I work at a place that's similar--staring at a computer screen for eight hours a day, with lame attempts at morale building. I've also worked at places where "consultants" are brought in to make things more efficient, which means lay offs. We hate our jobs, but we hate the thought of losing them even more.

There are so many little things that make Office Space great. Livingston's neighbor, Diedrich Bader, is a construction worker who carries his own bottle opener, and Orlando Hudson has a great cameo as an unemployed software engineer who sells magazine subscriptions pretending to be a reforming crack addict. Most famously the film features Stephen Root as Milton, a strange fellow obsessed with his red Swingline stapler (the company didn't make red staplers, but had to add one after the demand became so great) and has his desk constantly moved, eventually landing in the basement.

Office Space is eminently quotable, from the epithet "assclown" (used to describe the singer Michael Bolton, who has the same name as Herman's character) to the use of "flair" at Aniston's restaurant, and the odious phrase "O face" to describe one's visage during a moment of sexual ecstasy. I watched it for at least the third time the other night and it was as fresh as the first time. And of course, there is pure enjoyment during the scene in which our three heroes completely destroy a printer with a baseball bat.