Movies |
Office Space
By
Published: Feb 13, 2022
Category:
Comedy
Do you know about “TPS reports?”
Do you know the importance of a red stapler?
If you can answer YES to both questions, you are smiling at the memory of “Office Space,” a 1999 film that greatly amused you.
If you zeroed out, you will want to stream “Office Space” ASAP. [To stream it on Amazon Prime, click here.]
FYI: The TPS report is shorthand for Test Program Set, which is meaningless, mindless paperwork. It requires a cover sheet. The brutalized drone in “Office Space” keeps forgetting. Management never does.
FYI: The iconic red stapler was created for the film. Then people started asking Swingline to make one. Now many do. [To buy your very own $7.99 red stapler from Amazon, click here.]
What’s the big deal about this film, which grossed a pitiful $10.8 million when it was released? Simply: it became a cult sensation. “Flair” came from this film. Ditto “assclown.” And the “TPS report,” which has become a shorthand joke about ridiculous occupational tasks in my family. And, most of all, to quote Roger Ebert, the film is “a comic cry of rage against the nightmare of modern office life… where office cubicles are cells, supervisors are the wardens, and modern management theory is skewed to employ as many managers and as few workers as possible.” Sound familiar?
Before you watch the trailer, know this: Peter Livingston hates his job at Initech, a high-tech corporation that does… something. He has a crush on Jennifer Aniston, who is a waitress at a restaurant much like T.G. I. Friday’s, where employees are required to wear a minimum of 15 funny buttons called “flair” on the suspenders of their uniform. She wears 15. The suck-up wears 37.
Peter has two friends at work: Michael Bolton — no, not that Michael Bolton — and Samir. And there is a total loser, Milton, who is very attached to his red stapler. And there is a longing for revenge. And then there is revenge.
Now, the trailer. I pray you are not so distressed that you can’t smile.
