Fox Home Entertainment
Release date: February 3, 2009
MSRP: $34.98
Director: Mike Judge
Stars: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, Diedrich Bader, Gary Cole, Todd Duffey,
Ten years after its release, the working world needs a little Office Space therapy more than ever. I can’t even count the number of friends and aquaintances that have nothing positive to say about their jobs other than, “At least I have one.” In times like these, the idea of blowing off an unsatisfying career just because one feels like it is pure escapist fantasy, and Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is the patron saint of disgruntled workers everywhere.
Office Space started its life as a group of animated shorts, and when Mike Judge’s film version first hit theaters, it bombed mightily. Nobody expected such dry and subtle humor from the creator of Beavis and Butthead, the studio botched the promotional campaign, and audiences stayed away. Eventually the film found it’s natural home on Comedy Central and DVD, where everyone could enjoy it with three beers on Sunday night while ironing Monday morning’s suit and dreaming of what they would do if they had a million dollars.
This, incidentally, is exactly what you should do, especially if you work in some form of corporate hell…if you haven’t already seen this movie twenty seven times, get yourself a copy. If it doesn’t amuse you on the first viewing, watch it a couple more times. Pretty soon you too will find yourself humming “Die Motherfucker Die” while you file paperwork. Also, you will finally understand why that one guy at the office always says, “Um, yeah. I’m gonna need you to…go ahead and put that cover on the TPS report…m’kay?”
Video:
The film is presented in the original 1.85:1 ratio with a MPEG-4 AVC encode. The picture looks great, never has fair been so clear. Because much of the film was designed to look bland (dreary offices), one can’t really gush too much about the picture, but it is clear and nice looking.
Audio:
The soundtrack is presented in 5.1 DTS-HD. The only scenes that really pop are those with the gangsta rap.
Extras:
For those of you that have already seen the film twenty seven times, the BluRay contains the usual special features: trailers, cast interviews, and the like. There are also some games! If you ever really wanted to play Jump to Conclusions, here’s your chance.
Order Office Space, on Blu-ray, from Amazon.
Jill Lynch
For more reviews from Jill, and the rest of the Crimespree crew, check out the index of reviews.
