'office space': c or d?

Every home should have a copy, though.

Still - great just for the "O face".

Given the cult status Office Space has seemingly garnered since it hit the Blockbusters of the US (& beyond), I would hope someone would give Mr. Judge another chance.

1st time I saw it, it seemed a bit dry. Gets better w/ every viewing, though - even the iffy parts (like, f'r instance, that ending thing). Stephen Root is a comedic genius - between this flick & Newsradio, he should be That Guy in every single movie made from here on out.

And for all you Alexandra Wentworth fans out there - SCHMOOPIE!

Having seen it, uh, at least a dozen times, I think that the plot is much stronger than people make it out to be - it kept getting stronger with repeated viewing, then got a little weaker, then stronger again. The thing is that the jokes keep up until the end, I think. If you have jokes why do you want 'plot'? Pffft. It's fine as is.

One of my roommates refuses to watch this because it's too much like her work.

Oh, so many moments.

I think it's funny that this parents-in-mind page lists the discussion topics for this movie as: "Work, corporate culture, hypnotherapy, embezzlement, revenge."

Now, kids. We're gonna watch a movie called Office Space now. I want you to pay close attention because afterwards we are going to discuss what this says about corporate culture.

the movie itself has its moments but it ultimately succumbs to too many fallback comedy cliches.

Stephen Root as the squirrelly guy with the stapler who doesn't get cake = PRICELESS.

The scene in the beginning where MB's bumpin' Tupac and the black guy walks by and he turns it down and rolls up his window = white guilt at it's comedic finest.

If things could get any more classic than classic, Office Space tops that chart.

The only other movie I've seen the Michael Bolton guy in is Lost Angels, which stars Ad-Rock as a troubled rich kid trapped in a mental facility with Donald Sutherland (Michael Bolton plays the loudmouth of the facility and ROX).

Classic. The soundtrack is also killer (Geto Boys + old Mambo records = GENIUS)

What's even more hilarious is that Swingline caved into demand and came out with a red stapler just like the one in the movie.

Classic, watched it last night for the 100th time.

"When Peter and two other rebellious Initech employees get drunk, haul their hated copy machine out into a field and smash the damn thing to bits, the result is pure, electric cinema, as headlong and wordlessly giddy as anything in Godard and a hell of a lot easier to understand."

it's not that I'm lazy, etc.

Is it me, or did Ron Livingstone impose some sort've fatwa on interviewers asking him any further questions about "Office Space" (when it's obviously the high point of his career)?

Office Space
Sat 17 Apr, 01:10 - 02:35 85 mins

other listings magazines are available

It's definitely not as good as the UK series "The Office." that is classic.

I...liked it. I enjoyed it. I'll take what everyone's said about it getting better with further viewings in mind, and Root did a fine job indeed, I wouldn't mind just a film about his character but at the same time he was in the end probably most effective just as a perfectly recurring secondary figure. Pete's point way, way up top about it being sketches rather a movie as such applies strongly.

I'm sure many here will offer up thoughts that will prove me wrong, but I suspect, just as strongly, that a lot of the identification with the film has to do with whatever you've experienced in your working world, and in my case while everyone was cracking up as the jokes came through I was mostly smiling instead of belly laughing, I was bemused rather than feeling a shock of recognition -- in my post-college life, my two regular 'jobs' as such were teaching writing with an extremely sympathetic program supervisor, a role which I incredibly enjoyed despite its fluid and time-consuming nature, and my library job, which while its own form of bureaucratic oddballness has never caused me to rage, and where my supervisors have almost always been great folks or at the least harmless and easy to work around. If anything I've been incredibly appreciative of its just-right nature for me, a combination of problem-solving and relaxation that if anything has improved with time, and which increasingly I've been able to use to get some definite improvements and changes done over these years. In a way, this film's a bit like Buffy, something which a lot of people clearly adore but which doesn't fully resonate with me, doesn't feel applicable or say anything new or striking to me -- though the movie was hardly a jeremiad, I thought its tritest moments were the variants of 'work sucks' in the dialogue.

But enough of that -- yeah, pretty good, but I'm not thinking I'll be a cultist. Underrated character: Lawrence. Underrated plot element: the meta-references to Superman III.

partially because i find people who constantly bitch about their jobs as insufferable as their jobs most likely are

Ouch, that's a bit harsh, isn't it?

It's kind of weird watching it in a post-Office universe, because of course nothing does it better.

TS Gary Cole v. Ricky Gervais...

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/ayang/xanga/Office_Space.jpg

i'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with Archel there, cz although they are both set in offices etc etc, the moods are totally different: the office is sometimes really, really depressing, and not really 'comedy'. 'office space' is so much more 'heightened'. both are brilliant, though.

I concur.

They do have totally different moods, it's true, and do their thing brilliantly in their different ways. It's just that, within the relatively small subset that is 'films and television programmes set in offices' I think The Office is superlative.

Then, I got a job working in an office. We had two IT guys: one Indian American and one dorky white guy. They brought in a consultant, and then they fired both of the IT guys and replaced them with a cadre of cheap students from nearby Cal Berkeley. This was among many other things that could have been ripped straight out of my office if not for the fact that the film was made prior to me working there.

Our Milton's name was Leo, for what it's worth. I'd like to think I was the Peter, but I probably was more along the lines of Steve, the guy who sells the magazines door-to-door.

I love the next-door-neighbour. Some of the most subtle acting, just the way he declines the lead character's offer of a bottle opener as he already has one on his key-ring. Also the bit where he opens his front door and looks genuinely surprised at the glare from the sun.

Guide to filming locations in Austin

i never saw this

it is funny

i'm pretty sure that's not true slocki, everyone has seen this

i havent

you've screened it though, right?

i thought this move was ok when it first came out. it has aged really well tho!

slocki dude

i thought this move was ok when it first came out. it has aged really well tho!

― The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Tuesday, February 10, 2009 6:32 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

OTM. I enjoy this movie now more than when it first came out. Might be my place in life though.

It has aged really well. It's not until they start talking about Y2K that you're like, oh yeah.

And this movie did more to kill off those big golden eyeglasses that I didn't even realized were dated at the time than any other cultural moment outside of the BTK killer.

"my stabler!"

Probably at least once a month in my office I hear, "PC load letter? What the fuck does that mean?"

my stabler!

And this movie did more to kill off those big golden eyeglasses that I didn't even realized were dated at the time than any other cultural moment outside of the BTK killer.

― •--• --- --- •--• (Pleasant Plains), Tuesday, February 10, 2009 3:22 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

give it 6 months and Kanye West will make them hip

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_cVzGu1hZHlo/SJve8YcfL9I/AAAAAAAACEg/RmqjxotXosU/s400/christopher+meloni+03.jpg

^ my stabler

;)

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/pic/PHOTOFILE/AABF030~Ken-Stabler-Photofile-Posters.jpg

knew that was coming^

I've seen the film just once and the only specifics I remember besides Stephen Root is J Aniston's "flare."

I mainly remember shouting at it "Hey! You nicked that storyline straight out of Superman 3!" and then loving it all the more for pointing this out themselves.

I can never find this in the documentary section.

C on its own but a D for people who construct their entire sense of humor out of quotes from it (ditto Spinal Tap / SNL / Holy Grail etc)

o-face

did that movie coin the term?

I'd never heard it before, that's for sure

(see also: "bonercoaster"

I've seen the film just once and the only specifics I remember besides Stephen Root is J Aniston's "flare."

"'"flair"'"

it's on tonight on film 4, should i watch?
it's on after sum of all fears where people survive a nuclear bomb going off just outside their window...

explain please!

Leaded glass.

Yes watch Office Space any chance you get.

Office Space bombed when it came out

It did? What a great movie. Maybe the best opening scene in a comedy ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guv5LUT1AFw

it is monday morning here and that is otm

Diedrich Bader is so great in that.

has s1ocki seen this yet

has lex heard of it

http://www.nerve.com/files/archive/scanner/2008/06/08-15/o-face.jpg

on now

it's a documentary iirc

fairly meh on first viewing, felt like i missed an hour in the middle where he gets serious with aniston and i dunno learns valuable life shit.

'Work is shitty and we'd rather do something else' is a good message, though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5monB4fIzy8&feature=share

You wouldn't have got away with that jumping around shit with Tarrant in the chair.

It's okay.

Classic: "go ahead and....," flares, unenthusiastic clapping at office birthday party.

White guys showing primal instincts soundtracked to hip-hop = dud

Isn't the whole movie soundtracked to hip-hop?

Yeah, it's a little myopic to single out one Office Space scene in particular as 'soundtracked to hip-hop'.

basically everything up until peter snaps out of his hypno-groove is classic.

but there are enough moments in the oh shit we gotta wrap this up section to keep it still on the classic side.

"and then i guess i just...space out for about an hour."

also i think slocki is just being petulant at this point.

Isn't the whole movie soundtracked to hip-hop?

I am talking about the whole movie!

"PC load letter" bit is played out as much as any monty python or whatever, but still really really funny.

I know a ton of people whose first 'rap cd' was the soundtrack (me included)

"PC load letter" is the "these go to eleven" of the 90s/00s.

I thought that was "I do not want to go to federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison"

no way can anything even remotely associated with 'mind playin' tricks on me' be a dud.

i've seen this probably around a dozen times too. my only complaint is that the scene where everyone's holed up in Peter's apartment seems to drag on forever. also Peter's lopsided eyebrows always bothered me in a weird way. but the movie as a whole is total classic

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/business/staplers-the-attachment-thats-still-making-noise.html?_r=0

Staplers generally don’t rise to the level of prized collectibles, which is why a Swingline’s role as an object of obsession was so funny in the 1999 cult comedy"Office Space.”

In the film, a mumbling, superwide-eyed character named Milton becomes desperate after his red Swingline stapler is taken away during a frenzy of cost-cutting and downsizing at a soulless I.T. company.

You might assume that this stapler, not only cherished but central to the plot of “Office Space,” was a brilliant product placement move. In fact, Swingline had no hand in the story line. It had long stopped making that type of red stapler, and a black Swingline was painted red by the filmmakers.

At first, Swingline executives weren’t sure they liked being associated with such a dark parody of corporate life. But in 2002, recognizing the value of its pop-culture star turn, it released its Rio Red collectors edition 747 stapler. The company bills it “as the star of any office space.”

saw this again last night for 1st time in 10 years - visually I thought it looked much older than it is, a lot of the styles and aesthetics scream 1993 to me

yeah i forget it came out as late as it did.

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/the-death-of-flair/

As Americans moved past the grief of 9/11 and “Office Space” became more and more popular, it became an embarrassment for Friday’s and its competitors. According a “Chicago Tribune” article, Friday’s focus groups were puzzled by the “junk” on walls, and in 2005, the restaurant chain started to streamline its look in Chicago prototypes, starting with taking out the faux Tiffany lamps, removing the circus-striped awnings, and reducing the clutter on the walls. It also ditched the pinback-covered uniform so despised by Jennifer Aniston. In 2007, Ruby Tuesday followed suit, getting rid of its leaded-glass lamps going for a “contemporary and sophisticated” feel in a new Orlando, Florida, restaurant. Suddenly, the formerly lucrative business of picking antiques for chains began drying up.

That is an amazing article. Of COURSE it ends with a bar in Brooklyn bringing back the fern bar aesthetic

"PC load letter? what the fuck does THAT mean?"

xp yeah that was great, thanks.

good read, thanks!

It looks like a Luby's, circa. 1995:

http://i.imgur.com/vdQ4pJ9.jpg

this movie finally answers the question who who lives in those weird suburban apartment complexes

i mean, this movie is like Withnail or Python or Grosse Pointe Blanke with its quoteable bits but yeah, classic and has held up well.

"PC Load Letter? what the FUCK does that mean?"

my coworkers decided to re-enact a few scenes for a work function. my favorite: someone got a free printer via FB marketplace & they took it to a field near work & whaled on it w baseball bats, end result looked so good w low camera angles & the music over top :D

there was a p good profile of Judge in NY Times Mag last week.

i guess i shd watch Sil Valley at some point

it's really good! s1 takes a while to find its footing but its worth watching for sure

i was not expecting the beavis and butthead guy to be culturally relevant a quarter of a century later

this, from the nytmag profile, is amazing:

Over dinner, Judge told me that he now fears “Idiocracy” was a little optimistic — maybe the country won’t even exist in 2505. Then he told me the best story of the night. He was location-scouting for the movie at a reform school, though he didn’t know it was a reform school at the time. He looked around and thought the students there looked, in his words, “kinda stupid,” and figured they might be of use to him. In the “Idiocracy” universe, the most popular movie in America, and the winner of eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, consists entirely of a man’s buttocks, passing gas intermittently for 90 minutes. Judge had made a 35-millimeter print of this movie-within-a-movie — just a few minutes of it — for a scene that takes place in a theater, and he wound up recruiting 250 of the “juvenile delinquents” to fill the seats. Judge figured he’d have to do a bit of directing to get the proper response from these extras — that context-free flatulence wouldn’t actually be that funny — but the kids surprised him. “They just start laughing,” he told me. “And they just keep laughing.”

Amazing and kind of highlights what's execrable about Judge himself.

naaah, most kids in reform school are fucking stupid

like their parents

You forgot someone else

Rhymes with Linton

also the punchline to that anecdote is one of his major crew saying "why don't we just release THIS?"

Overestimating your fellow human beings is truly the definition of execrable

farting is funny

I had a "didja get that memo?" week

That moment when Peter is hesitant to even open the door for fear of the inevitable static shock is so perfect

i was not expecting the beavis and butthead guy to be culturally relevant a quarter of a century later

― mookieproof, Saturday, April 22, 2017 5:39 PM (four hours ago)

tbh beavis and butthead has held up way better than most shows of its day

Seeeeeriously. And, if anything, it's almost prophetic wrt where we've wound up 20+ years later.

Also, Nathan Fielder basically remade that fart movie for his show and it actually was completely hilarious.

I think a fart movie would go over pretty well with a large part of the populace tbh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbMLW4s2pBg

> Apatow

Y u doin layup drills man

Here's a layup drill:

i was not expecting the beavis and butthead guy to be culturally relevant a quarter of a century later

Ha, more like 500 years lat– oh wait, someone else mentioned that other movie.

I really feel the "just work hard enough to not get fired" part of Peter Berg's monologue.

also I have a "PC Load Letter, what the FUCK does that mean?" moment every other day.

ugh Ron Livingston, why the hell did I confuse the two, lol