Written and directed by Mike Judge, the creator of Beavis and Butthead, this comedy stars Ron Livingston as Peter Gibbons, a stressed out office junior who decides that he's had enough of the working life. Deciding to spend more time with his sexy waitress girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston), he rarely goes into work, and when he does he just plays computer games and insults his boss. But rather than getting fired, Peter gets praise and added responsibility, so he decides to go one step further and, together with his beleaguered colleagues, sets about defrauding the company. Office Space is a movie for anyone who's ever spent eight hours in a "Productivity Bin", had to endure a smarmy, condescending boss, had worries about layoffs, or just had the urge to demolish a temperamental printer or fax machine. Peter (Ron Livingston) spends the day doing stupefyingly dull computer work in a cubicle. He goes home to an apartment sparsely furnished by IKEA and Target, then starts for a maddening commute to work again in the morning. His co-workers in the cube farm are an annoying lot, his boss is a snide, patronising jerk, and his days are consumed with tedium. In desperation, he turns to career hypnotherapy, but when his hypno-induced relaxation takes hold, there's no shutting it off. Layoffs are in the air at his corporation and with two colleagues (both of whom are slated for the chute) he devises a scheme to skim funds from company accounts. The scam soon snowballs, however, throwing the three into a panic until the unexpected happens and saves the day. A little bit like a US version of The Office, director Mike (King of the Hill) Judge's debut movie is a spot-on look at work in corporate America circa 1999. With well-drawn characters and situations instantly familiar to the white-collar milieu, he captures the joylessness of many a cube denizen's work life perfectly. Jennifer Aniston, a waitress at Chotchkie's, a generic beer-and-burger joint, plays Peter's love interest and Diedrich Bader has a minor but hilarious turn as Peter's moustached, long-haired, drywall-installin' neighbour. --Jerry Renshaw