Music Box – Friday and Saturday, Midnight
1999
was a banner year for movies that criticized pursuing the American
Dream as a soul-sucking, monotonous, and crushing defeat. These films
all told us that the only way to achieve happiness in your modern life
is to get up out of your cubicle, give your boss an emphatic middle
finger and drop the hell out! But while FIGHT CLUB wrapped itself up in
CGI and a philosophy of violence, and AMERICAN BEAUTY sought to regain
it's youth with a Lolita and some reefer, OFFICE SPACE gives us the
chance to do nothing. And how sweet nothing can be. Introducing the
world to the phrases "pieces of flair" and "O-face," and with a plot
device shamelessly stolen from SUPERMAN III, the film attempts to deny
that it's a sophisticated satire. However, in the hands of
writer-director Mike Judge (who was best know for BEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
before this film), astute social commentary always gets mixed up with
fart jokes. Corporate underling Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) plays the
straight man to a cadre of ridiculous co-workers, neighbors, and
waiters. With ten years of history between now and the film's release,
it's basic setup of a code-monkey working on the Y2K problem may seem
dated, but the office stereotypes it creates are timeless. (1999, 89
min, 35mm) JH - Cine-File.info
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