Office Space (1999)

Three company workers who hate their jobs decide to rebel against their greedy boss.

Director:

Mike Judge

Writers:

Mike Judge (Milton animated shorts), Mike Judge (screenplay)

Stars:

Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Ron Livingston	...	Peter
Jennifer Aniston	...	Joanna
David Herman	...	Michael Bolton
Ajay Naidu	...	Samir
Diedrich Bader	...	Lawrence
Stephen Root	...	Milton
Gary Cole	...	Bill Lumbergh
Richard Riehle	...	Tom Smykowski
Alexandra Wentworth	...	Anne
Joe Bays	...	Dom Portwood
John C. McGinley	...	Bob Slydell
Paul Willson	...	Bob Porter
Kinna McInroe	...	Nina
Todd Duffey	...	Chotchkie's Waiter
Greg Pitts	...	Drew

Storyline

In the Initech office, the insecure Peter Gibbons hates his job and the obnoxious Division VP Bill Lumbergh who has just hired two efficiency consultants to downsize the company. His best friends are two software engineers Michael Bolton and Samir Nagheenanajar, that also hate Initech, and his intrusive next door neighbor Lawrence. He believes his girlfriend Anne is cheating on him but she convinces Peter to visit the hypnotherapist Dr. Swanson. Peter tells how miserable his life is and Dr. Swanson hypnotizes him and he goes into a state of ecstasy. However, Dr. Swanson dies immediately after giving the hypnotic suggestion to Peter. Peter, in his new state, starts to date the waitress Joanna and changes his attitude which results in his being promoted by the consultants. When he discovers that Michael and Samir will be downsized, they decide to plant a virus in the banking system to embezzle fraction of cents on each financial operation into Peter's account. However Michael commits a ...

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Plot Keywords:

black comedy | boss | office | computer | corporation | 

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Taglines:

Work Sucks.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and brief sexuality

Did You Know?

Trivia

Peter mentions that he (and presumably the other programmers) are working on fixing the "year 2000 problem" in Initech's banking software. This issue, often referred to as "Y2K" or the "millennium bug", was a real problem dealt with by many companies in the late 1990s. Peter accurately describes the issue as being related to a space-saving shortcut used by programmers (mostly in the 1960s-70s) where the year portion of date-related data was stored as two digits (e.g. "75" instead of "1975"). The expectation was that software written in such a way would fail -- perhaps catastrophically -- when the year changed from 1999 ("99") to 2000 ("00"). However, largely thanks to a massive effort on the part of the software and financial industries, most of the issues were resolved before the deadline, and the millennium change occurred with few issues.

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Goofs

When Peter asks Lawrence, "What would you do with a million dollars?" the poster behind Peter's chair moves between shots.

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Quotes

Peter Gibbons: You're gonna lay off Samir and Michael?
Bob Slydell: Oh yeah, we're gonna bring in some entry-level graduates, farm some work out to Singapore, that's the usual deal.
Bob Porter: Standard operating procedure.
Peter Gibbons: Do they know this yet?
Bob Slydell: No. No, of course not. We find it's always better to fire people on a Friday. Studies have statistically shown that there's less chance of an incident if you do it at the end of the week.

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Crazy Credits

At the very end of the credits, it states "This movie was cut entirely on a computer."

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Alternate Versions

The theatrical release of the film features the soundtrack in different sequence than the DVD release of the film.

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Connections

References Beavis and Butt-Head (1993)

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Soundtracks

Let It Go
Words and Music by Louis Natale (as Lou Natale)
Courtesy of Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

User Reviews

"Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta"

You'll be wearing' your "Oh Face" after viewing OFFICE SPACE.

This one goes out to everybody who dies a daily death in a "cube", and I think you all know who your are. You can't wait to get out at lunch, head over to some assembly-line crap-food franchise like "Chotchkie's" for some extreme fajitas, and try to make it back in time before the Bill Lumberghs of the house bust your chops for taking too long of a lunch. MMMM-KAAAYYYY! This movie even made "gangsta' rap" listenable, which I thought would never be possible.

Best Scene: Peter dreaming an oiled-up Lumbergh having sex with Joanna, and pausing for a quick gulp from his coffee mug.

Mr. Judge (and 20th Century Fox), I'm still holding my red stapler here, hoping in vain that you'll finally release this on a special edition DVD. Please include the 1991 short on it as well, WHEN you do.

This is the funniest movie of the last ten years, but of course, it failed commercially, and Mike Judge will probably never do another live action film because of that. So thank you America for supporting crap like THE HAUNTING, MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE, and WILD, WILD WEST back in '99, and letting OS die at the box office.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 February 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Cubiculos de la oficina

Filming Locations:

Building H, 11209 Metric Blvd, Austin, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,231,727, 21 February 1999

Gross USA:

$10,827,810

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$10,827,810

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, 3 Arts Entertainment, Cubicle Inc.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1