Extract (2009)

Mike Judge’s “Office Space” is a classic comedy for anyone who works at a desk and stores paper clips as if they were nuts for winter. “Extract” is another work comedy from the man who also gave us “Beavis and Butthead,” but set in the blue-collar arena. Jason Bateman is Joel Reynolds, owner of a company that makes baking extract. Running a business is the American Dream, right? Not for Joel. His desperate plan to sell out and retire with his wife (Kristin Wiig) is undone thanks to a bizarre factory-floor accident, a goofball bartender pal (Ben Affleck), and the arrival of a hot con artist (Mila Kunis). Judge makes small comedies about real people – oddballs and eccentrics, sure – but people we all know, and love and hate, including the gabby neighbor. His targeting of the privileged is ruthless, while his needling of common folk is rarely mean. Funny? Yes. But “Extract” is scaled as a TV movie, even if the warped marriage comedy thread playfully echoes “American Beauty.” B

Exam (2010)

Eight adults sit at desks in a small, gray, cube-like room and for 80 minutes must battle with wits and then more physicals means for a job at a mysterious bio-tech company in “Exam.” Very independent and consistently smart, “Exam” was co-written and directed by Brit Stuart Hazeldine and feels like an off-off-Broadway play as the film never leaves its one room. An unnamed man (Colin Salmon) lays out the task: “There is only one question,” and the recruits must figure out what it is. The last man or woman standing gets the job. It’s not just any job, either, as the firm likely has a cure for a virus that has rocked England to its knees. Among the recruits –- all named for their ethnicity or hair color -– is narcissistic White (Luke Mably), devoted Christian Black (Chuk Iwuji), ex-Special Forces loon Brown (Jimi Mistry), and head-shrinker Dark (Adar Beck). Reaching the One Question pull up dozens: Who among the eight is a plant, has the virus, or is desperate enough to kill? Taunt and exciting, “Exam” ingeniously turns Gen-Y yuppies into biblical savages, fighting for the favor not of God, but a CEO perhaps as powerful. Or wholly not. A-