The Age of Commercialism

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Maybe because I was 14 in August of 2001 is the reason I have no clue what this movie is about. I have no clue what their company is or does. I'm not very familiar with stock market either, but I do know enough to get the basics but I was still lost. The acting was okay but I just don't think it's a plot that will reach many people. Then again it's an Indie film and not meant to be a blockbuster. I have watched other movies based on stocks or finance and understood them perfectly so maybe it's really a time period movie. This movie will probably resonate better with people who were aware of the dot com explosion and then downfall.

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.

In "August," Josh Hartnett plays a cocky, twenty-something entrepreneur named Tom Sterling who, for the past several years (the movie is set in the early 2000s), has been riding the dot.com wave to easy fame and fortune - though he isn't quite prepared, either financially or emotionally, for the crash that is to come. Landshark, the company he founded with his brother, Joshua (Adam Scott) and of which he is currently CEO, has a couple hundred employees on its payroll, but pretty much everyone who works there is at a loss to explain just what it is the firm does or produces. Even worse, the company that was once valued at well over three-and-a-half million dollars is now worth just a paltry fraction of that amount, the "business model" having apparently failed to pan out as expected.As written by Howard A. Rodman and directed by Austin Chick, "August" is essentially a cautionary tale set against the get-rich-quick hysteria that came to dominate in the early days of the internet, when virtually anybody with a half-baked idea and a smidgen of techno-savviness could become a high-stakes player on Wall Street. That many of these people were making their fortunes out of little more than the cyber equivalent of chewing gum and bailing wire – while producing nothing of any real substance or value in the long run – is what eventually led to disaster for so many of them and for the economy as a whole."August" does a reasonably effective job capturing the moral emptiness and emotional shallowness of the characters and the world they inhabit, but, when all is said and done, the movie lacks the dramatic heft and focus needed to turn it into a profound and major work. The minor characters are bland and insufficiently developed, and even Tom is deficient in the kind of depth and shading he would need to make him a representative "tragic hero" for our time. That being said, the movie does offer some intriguing insights into the way the business world works these days and into which type of individual typically succeeds in the new arena. And which type fails.

I do understand the markets, I'm studying IT in business right now, and I happened to see this movie. Most of it was like watching paint dry. How the casting director scored Rip Torn and David Bowie is beyond me. The movie is much like a .com company - all hype and no substance. I can just see the guy pitching his scrip right now to the VC's - he probably used that same material when doing the same scene in the movie. This movie rely's heavily on the F-bomb to make its point about businesses - or the lack of sense in business. It could have used witty dialog instead... There are some diamonds in this rough though - when David Bowie tell's you he doesn't like the way you've been handling your personal life, you know you've hit rock bottom!