Author: Dennis

Office Space [1999]

Director: Mike Judge
Actor: Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Ajay Naidu, Gary Cole, John C. McGinley

This low budget movie is, to be honest, pretty fucking awesome. However, it might not appeal to those people not either a) working in an office or b) stuck in a job that is devouring their will to live. Much like the hit comedy series “The Office,” some of the characters are so recognisable, some of the frustrations hit so close to home, that you immediately want to give up your job and seek a change in career.

The premise of the movie is fairly simple; Peter (Livingston) is a software developer working for a relatively sizable IT company. Software developer might be too lofty a term to describe Peter’s position because he’s basically a code-monkey working on the Y2K problem in various software packages. For those of you who haven’t actively lived through the Y2K hype, or aren’t familiar with software development; this means sorting through thousands of lines of code, changing a 2-digit year variable into a 4-digit year variable. I can’t imagine more mindnumbing work without thinking of factories and production lines. He spends most of his morning zoning out, pretending to work and just waiting for his day to end, and if we are to believe him, spends about fifteen minutes a week doing actual work. Bureaucracy is running rampant throughout the company, and Peter is frequently asked by his manager Lumbergh (Cole) to work on saturdays and sundays. Needless to say, Peter is dissatisfied with his job. However, he’s also not the most ambitious fellow in the world, something his girlfriend tries to remedy by taking him to a hypnotherapist.

That’s where the problem starts; he explains how he’s frustrated with his life and the therapist hypnotises him, telling him to forget about his worries and his stress. Before Peter is revived from his hypnotisement the therapist gets a heartattack and dies, leaving Peter perpetually unstressed and unconcerned with his work. And just in time for a big reorganisation of the company in which everyone gets to do job interviews for their own job. Hilarity ensues.

This movie is kind of like the club skank; cheap, easy, but a lot of fun for one evening.

Gone Baby Gone [2007]

Director: Ben Affleck
Actor: Casey Affleck, Michelle Monaghan, Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman

Patrick (Affleck) and Angie (Monaghan) are a couple living in the same troubled, lower class, blue-collar neighbourhood in South Boston that they grew up in. They know almost everyone, and as such have made a good living as private detectives, specialising in missing people. When a little girl goes missing just down the street, and a media frenzy ensues, they are asked by Bea McKenzie, the girl’s aunt, to aid in the police’s investigation of the case. They feel a little out of their depth, because the cases they normally work are people skipping out on their car-payments or runaway kids, but they quickly fall in love with the little girl, Amanda, and try their best to help out. The reason for their involvement is because of their close connection to the neighbourhood, and people will talk to them that won’t talk to the police. The mother of the girl, Helene (Ryan), is found to be a terribly unfit mother, drinking, snorting and engaged in drug-muling for a rather psychotic druglord. Patrick and Angie team up with detective Bressant (Harris) and detective Poole (Ashton), backed by police captain Doyle (Freeman) to do what it takes to bring Amanda home. They dive deep into the seedy underbelly of South Boston, and uncover dirt on almost everyone involved, including the police. Patrick and Angie taking increasingly bigger risks and have to deal with friction between each other as the two no longer see eye to eye on the moral choices they have to make.

This movie was written by Dennis Lehane, author of other acclaimed books, like the one that Mystic River was based on, and true to form his depiction of lower class, blue-collar neighbourhoods is phenomenal. Ben Affleck did a wonderful job translating his vision to the silver screen, capturing the grittiness and the ugliness in spades. One of the things I really liked is that they managed to make everyone look either plain, or ugly. Casey Affleck’s performance is pretty good, though I wonder if his aloof, almost dim acting style – the same one that he adopted in the Assassination of Jesse James – is an act or just part of his personality. Regardless, it works well for this film, especially when it’s exchanged for an occasional delivery of some bad-ass lines. A good example is when he’s threatening the psychotic, Haitian druglord Cheese; awesome.

I liked this film, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Lehane’s films brought to the silver screen, as well as more of Ben Affleck’s direction.