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August (2008) More at IMDb Pro »
48 out of 76 people found the following comment useful :-
Josh Hartnett's Best Film To Date, 22 January 2008
Author: sundevil27 from Salt Lake City, UT USA
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 :)
19 out of 28 people found the following comment useful :-
Competent performances and a definite surprise, 16 June 2008
Author: intelearts from the big screen
Josh Harnett's portrayal of Tom, a super confident ballsy CEO of an internet start-up who sees it all go wonky is much better than expected.
The film scores even more points for avoiding simple messages and instead turns a captivating tale of an internet start-up bankrolled to the hilt who finds its IPO is going south fast into something richer, a true character study.
The relationships, family, work, ex-girlfriend are all handled with a nice touch of real human values, the conversations (mostly) ring true.
And yes, Bowie is great, if rather brief.
All in all, a real surprise, beautifully shot, and well-crafted, and who knew, Josh Harnett can deliver complex characters...
Recommended
27 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
Dull and Bland!, 16 June 2008
Author: mark-bratt from United Kingdom
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.
4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Excellent Movie Deserves More Praise, 29 September 2008
Author: I-Sense-A-Plot from United States
Watched this movie online on Netflix last night. Strange, the movie was released theatrically July 11,2008 but is not only already on DVD but can be watched instantly on Netflix.
So not only are movies straight to video but straight to instant viewing. Fine by me. Terrific movie. Critically panned though. Neither critics or fans understood the product this imploding .com company was selling or the fact that the product didn't matter. The plot in August is beset by ominious news stories preceeding "fall".
I thought the movie was terrific. I got it. The scene with David Bowie was SUPERB. I can't tell you enough about his character and the "nose bleed" he gives the protagonist - which comes down to the whole point of the movie and what's important in life. Also important is... the people you crush when rise to the top, you'll see on the way down when you fall. Or however the expression goes. In other words, PLAY NICE.
Analysis: Recommend
2 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Surprisingly good movie and performances, 7 September 2008
Author: Siamois from Canada
This is the surprise of the year so far for me.
This excellent little film tells a story of two brothers and their struggling company in a timeline that just precedes 9/11. Several people on IMDb have commented that they don't see why the movie needed to be "cheapened with a 9/11 theme" or some such nonsense. Let's be clear: this movie is not about 9/11 but this was historically a crucial point for the dot-com bubble.
The movie does actually a wonderful job highlighting these events, without spelling them out in some awkward exposition. The story focuses mostly on one of the brothers: The Charismatic Tom (played by Josh Hartnett), who mostly handles the business aspects. Director Austin Chick does a good job immersing us in his life, his lifestyle, his struggles and his ambiguities. His uneasy rapports with his brother Joshua, co-founder of the company "Landshark", who is the quiet "tech guy" behind the operation. With his parents. His former girlfriend. Various other persons in his life and business dealing. It's an absolutely fascinating portrait. What really helps is Hartnett's performance. Now, I'm sorry to say I never was a fan of this fairly popular actor and he had failed to impress me until now... but this has changed. Hartnett is in fact the main strength of this movie, makes the story come alive and shines among a very, very solid cast around him. Tom's role as a confident, brash young guy who must keep appearance and keep his company afloat while he knows it's going down (along with his personal life) required a good acting palette.
It is a strength of the movie that it manages to push both the story of Tom and present an interesting portrait of this time period where economically, things were crashing. What we have here is a movie that could very well have been boring to death due to its topic (finances are a fairly abstract thing, and usually not terribly interesting unless they're your own) but instead becomes fascinating. In many ways, it is reminiscent of Wall Street. Various speeches that Tom delivers and his bout of negotiations lead to several strong moments.
This is a great movie. Where pretty much every scene is worthwhile and supports the overall themes that are pushed. Director Chick seems to have a purpose with every element presented and even the elements not present. Consider: we never get to know what Landshark does. At all. Which might seem weird yet is terribly fitting since along with other shooting star companies of the time, it was all a smoke screen anyway.
Great movie, probably a must buy for those who have an interest in the dot-com bubble.
10 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Not Entertaining, 21 June 2008
Author: watchout5 from Seattle, Washington
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
May Contain Spoilers I love how the site tells me several times over if I put in a spoiler it will ban my account, because the entire movie can be seen by watching the trailer. There's no plot, there's no substance and I can't really tell what's going on half the time.
I will however spoil the movie, because I don't think you should waste your time on it. He makes a nothing company seem like a big company, and you never find out what they do. It would have been OK not to know what they did but the way they ended the movie wasn't really an ending. In most of their taglines they have 9/11 in it, are we supposed to think he died or something after he got fired? This movie tries to capitalize on 9/11 like landshark capitalizes on nothing. I don't think it'll work, you're better off staring at a wall for 2 hours, the plot in this movie moves just as much as that wall during that 2 hours.
I don't normally hate movies, I loved all those artsy movies people always say suck but this movie was probably the worst movie I've ever seen. If they could help explain to me why they didn't have more nudity, because that's the only thing this movie had going for it.
Ultra Bunk! <--- Suck to the infinity power!, 25 November 2008
Author: bostontekguy from United States
This movie was a total waist of time. The synopsis made the story sound good, but after the first 5 seconds of watching the movie, I knew this movie was going NO WHERE FAST. I've seen over a thousand movies and this one goes some where at the bottom with Aeon Flux & Glitter. EXAMPLE: 1. The Director must have run out of ideas to Shoot the Film, cause for a total of 25 minutes of the movie they show Josh Hartnett walking around or in bed doing nothing/saying nothing. 2. What the Heck is Land Shark, I'm in the IT field and the stuff still didn't make sense. 3. The purpose of the business of Land Shark is never revealed.
I hope I save someone's life, because I lost about an hour and a half a mine.
1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Not entertaining at all, 12 September 2008
Author: from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
I wish I had seen the comments on this movie before I wasted two hours. Thank goodness it only cost me $1 at Redbox. This time I want my buck back. It was dull, boring, and filled with vague reflections. I hope Josh lost all his acting money as producer of this bore of a movie. I waited and waited for something to happen...nada. I really didn't care what his company did...I would rather sit in a quiet room and listen to my neighbor's dog bark for two hours. I really wanted something interesting to happen and had high hopes for this movie. On other comments, I continue to see references to 9/11. I missed that completely in the movie. But that could have been when I fell asleep.
This movie turned me against the Oreo cookie...now, that's powerful.
2 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Waste of time and money, 26 August 2008
Author: Lea Simpson from United States
*** This comment may contain spoilers ***
OK, I have to agree with many people and say that this film was boring and waste of time. I obviously did not see a plot and the story line made no sense. The entire movie was about saving a company... who wants to watch a movie on that? Come on now.. Josh Harnett acted the part real good but the plot goes over my head. The best part and most interesting to me was his relations with Sarrah and when they just vanished her out of the movie there was really nothing else.. That was the only story line that this movie had not some stupid company going down in August a month before 9/11!! Who cares??? People watch movies to be entertained.. not lectured and that is what this movie gave me.. nothing made any sense besides his relationship with Sarrah..
12 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Very boring and waste of time, 10 August 2008
Author: prestonnaclk9 from United States
The best part about this movie was the music score. And that was average. The movie reminded me of a snapshot of anyone's life. Why would I want to watch that? It wasn't funny, it wasn't suspenseful, and it wasn't witty. The writing was bland. There was zero plot. One of the characters in the movie mentioned the company was running on fumes. I think the movie itself was running on fumes.
The main character also smokes a lot. I've always found that directors who feel their characters need a "smoke prop" are using it to make up for the lack of something in the movie. In this case the movie lacked an actual plot.
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