Office Space

STARRING Jennifer Aniston, Ron Livingston, Gary Cole, Alexandra Wentworth

DIRECTED BY Mike Judge

In his first starring role, Livingston plays a programmer drone who, in a posthypnotic fit of anti-establishment rebellion, ditches his girlfriend, falls for a local waitress (Aniston), and contemplates quitting his job. Based on ''Milton,'' Judge's 1993 animated short for Saturday Night Live, Office Space marks the King of the Hill and Beavis and Butt-head creator's first foray into live action. ''It's really similar to animation,'' says Judge, who ran Hill read-throughs via phone during lunch breaks. ''Planning it out, designing the backgrounds and the look. Though sometimes I thought, 'God, I could've drawn this by now.''' ''The message of the movie is that ambition is not necessarily good and that mediocrity is not necessarily bad,'' chuckles Livingston. ''It's Judge. Simple, anti-smart and anti-cool, but at the same time almost Zen.'' (Moved to January)

THE LOWDOWN Remember the last time Judge did anything less than drop-dead funny? Neither do we.