Extract (2009)

Writer/director Mike Judge is best known to me for Office Space (1999), the comedy which has a cult following and was based on Judge's 1991 animated short, but he also wrote and produced Beavis and Butthead on TV (1993-97). The less said about Idiocracy (2006) the better. But this one, which takes on a different kind of employment, stars Jason Bateman (so good in Arrested Development (TV 2003-06), Juno (2007), Hancock (2008), and State of Play) as Joel, the owner of a business that manufactures a few kinds of food extracts. Despite some lukewarm reviews Jack & I liked it and laughed out loud many times. Sarah & Phillip were quieter than we were, but when I looked over they were smiling. The imdb summary gives more plot information than I had going in, so leave that alone if you haven't seen it. Kristen Wiig (on Saturday Night Live since 2005, small parts in 2007 in Knocked Up and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story and Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), slightly more to do in Adventureland) looked lovely but didn't do much in this one either. Bateman was up to the task of carrying the picture, with the able help of Mila Kunis (every episode of That 70's Show (1998-2006), Forgetting Sarah Marshall), J.K. Simmons (the dad in Juno, the editor in Spider Man (2002, 2004, 2007), CIA guy in Burn After Reading, and lots more), Clifton Collins, Jr. (great in Capote (2005) and Sunshine Cleaning), David Koechner (who has done a lot of comedy, but my favorite was Thank You for Smoking (2005), where he played one of the Merchants of Death) as the annoying neighbor, Dustin Milligan (the latest incarnation of 90210 on TV) as the dim pool guy, and Ben Affleck (some I liked were Chasing Amy (1997), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Hollywoodland (2006), He's Just Not That Into You) reprising his Dazed and Confused (1993) stoner roots as the bartender in a straggly wig. Character actress Beth Grant, whose character wears a hairnet and works on the assembly line, is one of those, "Oh, that person!" people. She has 135 credits so far, many of them one episode of various TV series. One more hair credit: Kiss musician and reality TV guy Gene Simmons is hilarious in his helmet hair (which is not exclusive to this movie). In the trailer, Judge is the bald guy wincing and ducking after Collins gets hit. Funny stuff.