August

Good storytelling can either tell you what happens, tell you how it was, or both. Most moviegoers, the superficial ones, watch a movie for the "what happens." They want to meet a character that they like and see something good happen to them with a good in between. And so when they watch a movie they expect a story and they like it or dislike it without considering everything that the movie is trying to do. Don't make that mistake when watching August.

August is a movie that tells a story, a "this is what happened to Tom and his company and his brother and his life", but that is not the REAL of this movie. This movie does a much better job of telling the movie watcher a "this is how it was" than a "this is what happens." So when you watch August, which i think you should, absorb the movie for the parts that elaborate on the environment, the time, place, and attitudes, surrounding August 2001, not just the story or the dialog or the sometimes lack thereof.

It's a movie that tells the story of two brothers that started a dotcom that survived the tech bubble collapse and its story in reality does the job of representing the not so apparent futures of the people left in the dotcom world after its demise.

What is even more enjoyable about the movie than its overall plot, which, like i said, isn't the real story, is Josh Hartnett's character, who not only represents the image of the dotcom-er CEO circa 1999 but also speaks the truly empty rhetoric of the times that feed and fueled the tech bubble for so long. Just listening to his speech and realizing that he's talking about practically nothing but making it sound like he's preaching the new age gospel, the evangelical oratory of the e-generation, in part, produces the statement the movie is trying to make about the times.

So don't watch this movie for the "story" or to "see what happens." Watch this movie with the understanding that its a movie that tries to capture a period in time: its character's and its subplots"/"devices" being either deeper (representing something/someone more generic), or being empty (just a way to kill time or build a character in a way that is unimportant to the "deeper meaning").

Enjoy the movie. Just be aware of what to look out for.

the detractors of this movie kept looking for a beginning - middle - and end to this story (in my opinion). that's not what it's about! the story continues today.

after watching this story i was most taken by the mystery of it all. it starts then ends and the in-between comes across as vacuous and self indulgent - and isn't that what the dot com bubble was all about? no where in the entire film is "Landshark" actually explained as to what it does. the developers do not really explain it and above all the employees seem lost as to exactly what their duties are!! and in that is the clue to this movie.

it's about the grasp for fortune & fame built on a foundation that no one really understood - the internet! a quick road to cash as long as you presented yourself as if you knew what you are talking about easy cash came your way. even the elderly David bowie character fell for it but didn't care for the hartnett characters lifestyle. appearance is everything substance doesn't count.

i liked this flick and will watch it again! beautifully photographed and acted - it's a thinking persons movie so don't expect the story to be handed to you.

Screened this at the Sundance 2008 Festival. This movie actually caught me by surprise, it was very hip and surprisingly Josh Hartnett really brought it. The movie has a modern "Wall Street" type vibe, the story follows Tom (Hartnett) who is a super confident .com entrepreneur who is in crisis mode during the downward spiral of the .com stock bust just before September 2001. Hartnet nails this role with high energy output and makes this a very watchable flick. Austin Chick the director is obviously very talented and throws just the right amount of style and cool music into the film to keep it slick and contemporary which should broaden its appeal past just the Gen-X group. The one downside is that the film gives the other characters so little room to make their presence felt, especially David Bowies character who gets only a few minutes of face time. Other then that the movie really has a nice pace and the ending worked very well when you consider all the superficial things that Americans thought they cared about until Sept 2001, and then realized there are somethings much more important then money and stature.

Film should get some nice play on the indie circuit, though indie folks probably will be hard swayed to pay over for a Hartnett movie. I would reckon that Josh Hartnett will win over some who doubted him with this performance and maybe even get a little award type talk. I know its hard for me to believe either :)

August is a very finite and pointed film. It's a low-flying indie sleeper that has its points to make and it makes them quite effectively. Above all it really manages to nail a small moment in time, that of the dot-com implosion.

I, along with many others I'm sure, was part of a dot com start-up similar in some respects to Landshark. It was very common in those days of over-hyped speculation to bet tons of VC generated start-up capital on IDEAS that looked promising, when in reality much needed to happen before they could be realized. This didn't hold true for all start-ups, but a fair majority.

It's very easy to get caught up in the delusion that you're a "real" company when your stock is shooting up the charts and quite a glass of ice water to the face to realize all that speculated valuation can disappear overnight, which it did slowly over the course of late 2000 and 2001...it was never really there to begin with.

August grabs that bursting bubble in a number of effective ways. As the film progresses, it becomes apparent that for all of Tom's boasting and bluster, he's nothing more than a hyped-up spin doctor. Watching this revelation sink his ego is entertaining if not more than a bit sad. Hartnett does an adequate job with the role.

The most true-to-life scene for me was the mass of staffers flocking around F**kedCompany.com, which was a popular barometer for the sink-age rate of companies about to go belly-up, instead of lounging at their Ikea desks playing solitaire...they're not lazy, they just have nothing to do...no customers, no product.

As a film, this is a tough one to sell to an audience who doesn't have first-hand experience in the story's premise. There is a lot of business/financial terminology/slang thrown around that to those not knowledgeable or interested in it will seem very boring.

It does what Indies do best...present a slice of life, with no pat clichés or feel-good endings. And for that, I liked it.

Perhaps its because i don't really know anything about the stock market and my ignorance in that area relates to how much i enjoyed the film, maybe if i knew anything about stocks i would have enjoyed the film as much as some of the other people who have commented...but i didn't. I am a fan of josh hartnett and thought the acting was good i just don't think he and the rest of the cast had anything to work with. Perhaps if there was more information about there struggling company as well as more general background info i would have spent less time staring blankly at the wall and more time staring at the film.

i wouldn't recommend this film to someone like me who knows nothing about wall street but then again i wouldn't recommend this even if you worked on wall street, without more background i think this film has greatly reduced its target audience which could have been potentially every one to a small percentage.