Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #5 - Office Space

TOP FIVE, MANG. Boy, it's so close I can taste it!

Office Space comes to us from the creator of Hank Hill himself, Mike Judge. The movie tells the story of Peter Gibbons, a man who hates his job and feels he lives in a dead-end rut of an existence. It all starts out when his bosses chastize him over his missing cover on his TPS Reports, including the venomous boredom howler Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole). Along with Peter at the offices of Initech is Samir Nagheenanajar (which is spelled exactly as it sounds), Milton Waddams who idolizes his stapler and is ignored by much of the office and Michael Bolton, no relation to the "no talent, ass clown" pop singer of course. Together with them, Peter has coffee and moons over the beautiful waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston). That night, he attends a hypnotherapy appointment with his girlfriend Anne. The hynotherapist promises to cure Peter of his downtrodden look on life by sending him into a trance, but before he can bring him out of it, he dies of a heart attack, leaving Peter in a daze of total absconding from responsibility.

What follows is Peter finally setting his life right in all the ways he's wanted. He skips work and asks Joanna to lunch. The two of them bond over their hatred of management and their love of the TV show Kung Fu. As Peter's life continues to improve, the ones around him turn sour. Two consultants are brought in to assist in the downsizing of Initech and all of Peter's comrades are due to be laid off; Michael, Samir and their mutual friend Tom Smykowski. They all plan one final trick to get back at their employer. Michael develops code that will divert fractions of pennies into a bank account owned by the three of them. They find that the transactions are so small to be undetected but still will add up to a substantial amount of money over time.

Office Space is one of those extremely universally relatable movies that anyone who works in an office can relate too. The ambience of scanners running, printers jamming and phones ringing. Mundane managers, dragging conversations and soul-sucking coworkers that make your skin crawl are the focus of the background characters. Anyone who watches this movie will instantly know what it feels like to be Peter Gibbons. This is where the movie's most prominent strength comes from. Other things to note are Gary Cole's and Ron Livingston's portrayals of Bill Lumbergh and Peter Gibbons, respectively. Lumbergh has been made into one of the most popular memes on the internet, the "Yeah if you could just..." meme. If you haven't seen Office Space, get yourself to the Netflix, the Amazon or the Hulu and find anyway you can to rent it or buy it, physical media or digital. The humor can be a little dry at times, but it's one of the most subtle brilliant comedies of our time.