list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around August on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/August/330355/default.aspx Title: August
Year: 2008
Director: Austin Chick
Plot: Josh Hartnett, Naomie Harris, Rip Torn, and Adam Scott star in director/co-screenwriter Austin Chick's tale about an ambitious dotcom entrepreneur attempting to stay afloat as the stock market begins to collapse and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks loom ever closer on the horizon. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 5
Number of Lists: 3
Number of blog posts: 3
Number of discussion threads: 1
SpoutRating: 2
]]>Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:36:55 GMTAugust2008Austin Chick<a href="/players/P___241673/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Josh Hartnett</a>, <a href="/players/P___334461/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Naomie Harris</a>, <a href="/players/P___114388/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Rip Torn</a>, and Adam Scott star in director/co-screenwriter Austin Chick's tale about an ambitious dotcom entrepreneur attempting to stay afloat as the stock market begins to collapse and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks loom ever closer on the horizon. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide5Slightly Tagged (1-5)3312http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/s330355.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/August/330355/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/tenenbaums/archive/2009/2/2/40148.aspx Post By: Tenenbaums
Post To: Tenenbaums Blog
Post Date: 2/2/2009 12:51:26 PM
Body: Remember when Yahoo! went public and their stock price eclipsed $200 per share? The fast-money frenzy swept up investors and computer nerds alike, transforming the internet into a new-age gold rush where fame and fortune was to be found for hard workers. However, for many talented go-getters, the party did not last long. In August, director Austin Chick rewinds the clocks to late summer 2001 when Ben Affleck entered rehab, Aaliyah died, and the young upstart internet companies who were millionare-hot in January cooled off in a big way. Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett, in his best grown-up performances) is a cocky young dotcom entrepreneur and CEO of LandShark. His brother and co-founder Joshua (Adam Scott) is the programming genius behind the company, but Tom is LandShark's mouth and a very knowledgable one at that. Chick sticks with Tom in nearly every scene and fully captures his swagger and way with words, none better than in the first example of Tom at work. With stock prices beginning to dip, Tom successfully convinces a client to hire LandShark without seeing a proposal, his track record and bravado confidence enough proof that LandShark is the right choice. The client is initially insulted by Tom's lack of preparation, yet amidst Joshua's apologies, the client is drawn to Tom's attitude. A similar scene occurs at an information conference where Tom, the keynote speaker, fails to prepare a speech, yet out of nowhere pulls a rousing soliloquy on the future of the internet. His fellow young technophiles are thrilled by the passion of his words and his doubting co-workers, who minutes before were sure of on-stage disaster, congratulate him on his unscripted brilliance. Tom is an interesting man, one whose company is desirable due to his electric personality, yet who is equally despicable for his abundant ignorance. This love/hate relationship with Tom lasts throughout the film. He is a character with appealing energy and a thirst for success, but he's also so infatuated with the boom rise LandShark had that he's unwilling to change his business tactics once the market shifts. As with many wunderkinds who peak early, Tom's confidence, which when mixed with millions of dollars transforms into ego, becomes his downfall. At work, he has surrounded himself with a business-saavy COO (Robin Tunney) and CFO (Andre Royo), but while they consistently look out for LandShark's future, Tom views their lifesaving advice as cowardly. He's unable to accept that he is no longer on top and his risky plan to outlast current threats to his company are downright scary. His home life is just as self-destructive. His parents (Rip Torn and Caroline Lagerfelt) are skeptical of the longevity of their sons' success and that doubt leads to angry confrontations on Tom's part. Joshua increasingly cannot handle his brother's poor business skills, especially when he has a wife a new baby to support. And when an old flame (Naomi Harris) reenters his life, sparks fly but Tom's consistent inability to change likewise results in disaster on the personal front. Chick presents the tragedy of Tom amidst a somewhat convincing 2001. The styles, attitude, Seattle graininess, and soundtrack (including a well-placed Radiohead number) are there, but the time-appropriate news footage feels superfluous and gimmicky. August is fine without such tricks. It's a gangster/drug lord film without the violence and narcotics, a portrait of ambition gone awry in a time when opportunity felt widespread. Tom represents the entrepreneur in everyone, another cautionary tale of demise by greed. But because he struggles during a recent era, in the now-distant memory of immediate pre-9/11 society to which the U.S. strives to return, the tragedy is far more complex and appealing than August's Scarface cousins.
]]>Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:51:26 GMTTenenbaumsTenenbaums Blog2/2/2009 12:51:26 PMRemember when Yahoo! went public and their stock price eclipsed $200 per share? The fast-money frenzy swept up investors and computer nerds alike, transforming the internet into a new-age gold rush where fame and fortune was to be found for hard workers. However, for many talented go-getters, the party did not last long. In August, director Austin Chick rewinds the clocks to late summer 2001 when Ben Affleck entered rehab, Aaliyah died, and the young upstart internet companies who were millionare-hot in January cooled off in a big way. Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett, in his best grown-up performances) is a cocky young dotcom entrepreneur and CEO of LandShark. His brother and co-founder Joshua (Adam Scott) is the programming genius behind the company, but Tom is LandShark's mouth and a very knowledgable one at that. Chick sticks with Tom in nearly every scene and fully captures his swagger and way with words, none better than in the first example of Tom at work. With stock prices beginning to dip, Tom successfully convinces a client to hire LandShark without seeing a proposal, his track record and bravado confidence enough proof that LandShark is the right choice. The client is initially insulted by Tom's lack of preparation, yet amidst Joshua's apologies, the client is drawn to Tom's attitude. A similar scene occurs at an information conference where Tom, the keynote speaker, fails to prepare a speech, yet out of nowhere pulls a rousing soliloquy on the future of the internet. His fellow young technophiles are thrilled by the passion of his words and his doubting co-workers, who minutes before were sure of on-stage disaster, congratulate him on his unscripted brilliance. Tom is an interesting man, one whose company is desirable due to his electric personality, yet who is equally despicable for his abundant ignorance. This love/hate relationship with Tom lasts throughout the film. He is a character with appealing energy and a thirst for success, but he's also so infatuated with the boom rise LandShark had that he's unwilling to change his business tactics once the market shifts. As with many wunderkinds who peak early, Tom's confidence, which when mixed with millions of dollars transforms into ego, becomes his downfall. At work, he has surrounded himself with a business-saavy COO (Robin Tunney) and CFO (Andre Royo), but while they consistently look out for LandShark's future, Tom views their lifesaving advice as cowardly. He's unable to accept that he is no longer on top and his risky plan to outlast current threats to his company are downright scary. His home life is just as self-destructive. His parents (Rip Torn and Caroline Lagerfelt) are skeptical of the longevity of their sons' success and that doubt leads to angry confrontations on Tom's part. Joshua increasingly cannot handle his brother's poor business skills, especially when he has a wife a new baby to support. And when an old flame (Naomi Harris) reenters his life, sparks fly but Tom's consistent inability to change likewise results in disaster on the personal front. Chick presents the tragedy of Tom amidst a somewhat convincing 2001. The styles, attitude, Seattle graininess, and soundtrack (including a well-placed Radiohead number) are there, but the time-appropriate news footage feels superfluous and gimmicky. August is fine without such tricks. It's a gangster/drug lord film without the violence and narcotics, a portrait of ambition gone awry in a time when opportunity felt widespread. Tom represents the entrepreneur in everyone, another cautionary tale of demise by greed. But because he struggles during a recent era, in the now-distant memory of immediate pre-9/11 society to which the U.S. strives to return, the tragedy is far more complex and appealing than August's Scarface cousins. http://www.spout.com/blogs/unclefestering/archive/2008/9/15/35135.aspx Post By: unclefestering
Post To: unclefestering Blog
Post Date: 9/15/2008 12:40:31 AM
Body: Directed by Austin Chick. Starring Robin Tunney, Rip Torn, Josh Hartnett, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Adam Scott, Andre Royo, Naomie Harris. August is like an inverted Langston Hughes poem in movie form. Instead of struggling for the deferred dream, Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett) is fighting to keep alive a dream that was brought into the world too soon. Unfortunately, his own hubris may get in the way of his goal. Sterling is the CEO of Landshark, an e-commerce company that does… well… OK, I’m not sure what the company does. But neither do several of the characters in the movie. Sterling launched the company with his brother Josh (Adam Scott) just as the warning signs of the dot.com bubble's impending burst are becoming clear. He’s hailed as a genius and the company’s stock rises as several competitors are crashing. A quick jump to the end of the summer of 2001 and Landshark is foundering due to Tom’s wasteful spending habits, which have blown through the company’s initial capitalization and a lack of customers.On top of all this, is the external problem that by now the dot com bubble has popped and the stock is tanking. To make matters worse, Tom’s own arrogance prevents him from closing deals. In a meeting with a potential client, Tom refuses to give them a presentation. Instead, he spouts a bunch of babble about how his company is pure “e” and anybody would be a fool to turn him away. The pressures of the business also flow directly into his personal life. His brother no longer trusts him and is just as desperate to keep the company afloat since he has to pay for a new mortgage and protect his wife and newborn son. Tom's relationship with his parents is also rocky, as he wildly reacts to any negative comments about the business and attacks them for giving up on their own ideals. His one bright spot is his attempt to rekindle a relationship with his ex-girlfriend (Naomie Harris) who has just returned to New York. This movie really made me think that Josh Hartnett could act, something I've doubted for a long time. The movie rides and falls on Hartnett’s shoulders, since he is almost every scene. You can feel the jittery energy coming off him as his persona of business whiz is cracking and he becomes more and more desperate to keep the business running and, more importantly to him, to be perceived as a success. Two small roles highlight the fracturing of that self perception. Rip Torn, playing the father of the Landshark brothers, quickly dismisses the entire venture with questions about what the company actually does and his stentorian disapproval of a staff sitting around eating Oreos. Rarely has a cookie stood in for all the disappointment a father could have for his son. The other is a brief cameo by David Bowie as the venture capitalist who could be the last hope to save the company, but at a ruinous cost. Bowie’s character is so dismissive of Tom Sterling that he barely bothers to look at him when they are finally in the same room. The one thing that overshadows all of the action in the movie is that the viewer knows that one month after this takes place; all the actions in this movie will be seen as petty and small when compared to the tragedy looming in September 2001.
]]>Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:40:31 GMTunclefesteringunclefestering Blog9/15/2008 12:40:31 AMDirected by Austin Chick. Starring Robin Tunney, Rip Torn, Josh Hartnett, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Adam Scott, Andre Royo, Naomie Harris. August is like an inverted Langston Hughes poem in movie form. Instead of struggling for the deferred dream, Tom Sterling (Josh Hartnett) is fighting to keep alive a dream that was brought into the world too soon. Unfortunately, his own hubris may get in the way of his goal. Sterling is the CEO of Landshark, an e-commerce company that does&hellip; well&hellip; OK, I&rsquo;m not sure what the company does. But neither do several of the characters in the movie. Sterling launched the company with his brother Josh (Adam Scott) just as the warning signs of the dot.com bubble's impending burst are becoming clear. He&rsquo;s hailed as a genius and the company&rsquo;s stock rises as several competitors are crashing. A quick jump to the end of the summer of 2001 and Landshark is foundering due to Tom&rsquo;s wasteful spending habits, which have blown through the company&rsquo;s initial capitalization and a lack of customers.On top of all this, is the external problem that by now the dot com bubble has popped and the stock is tanking. To make matters worse, Tom&rsquo;s own arrogance prevents him from closing deals. In a meeting with a potential client, Tom refuses to give them a presentation. Instead, he spouts a bunch of babble about how his company is pure &ldquo;e&rdquo; and anybody would be a fool to turn him away. The pressures of the business also flow directly into his personal life. His brother no longer trusts him and is just as desperate to keep the company afloat since he has to pay for a new mortgage and protect his wife and newborn son. Tom's relationship with his parents is also rocky, as he wildly reacts to any negative comments about the business and attacks them for giving up on their own ideals. His one bright spot is his attempt to rekindle a relationship with his ex-girlfriend (Naomie Harris) who has just returned to New York. This movie really made me think that Josh Hartnett could act, something I've doubted for a long time. The movie rides and falls on Hartnett&rsquo;s shoulders, since he is almost every scene. You can feel the jittery energy coming off him as his persona of business whiz is cracking and he becomes more and more desperate to keep the business running and, more importantly to him, to be perceived as a success. Two small roles highlight the fracturing of that self perception. Rip Torn, playing the father of the Landshark brothers, quickly dismisses the entire venture with questions about what the company actually does and his stentorian disapproval of a staff sitting around eating Oreos. Rarely has a cookie stood in for all the disappointment a father could have for his son. The other is a brief cameo by David Bowie as the venture capitalist who could be the last hope to save the company, but at a ruinous cost. Bowie&rsquo;s character is so dismissive of Tom Sterling that he barely bothers to look at him when they are finally in the same room. The one thing that overshadows all of the action in the movie is that the viewer knows that one month after this takes place; all the actions in this movie will be seen as petty and small when compared to the tragedy looming in September 2001. http://www.spout.com/groups/Spout_Mavens/Movies_available_for_review/366/34520/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: rjsprague
Post To: Spout Mavens
Post Date: 8/29/2008 9:22:30 AM
Body: Here are a bunch of films that we only have one of currently. Team Picture Faster Gypsy Caravan Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning Prometheus' Garden Monster Road The Brandon Teena Story Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? The Guatemalan Handshake The Robert Drew KENNEDY FILMS COLLECTION August Most of these films are obviously not new. They are however free for your reviewing pleasure. If you are interested then drop a message here or send an e-mail to mavens@spout.com. First come first serve.
]]>Fri, 29 Aug 2008 13:22:30 GMTrjspragueSpout Mavens8/29/2008 9:22:30 AMHere are a bunch of films that we only have one of currently. Team Picture Faster Gypsy Caravan Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning Prometheus' Garden Monster Road The Brandon Teena Story Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt? The Guatemalan Handshake The Robert Drew KENNEDY FILMS COLLECTION August Most of these films are obviously not new. They are however free for your reviewing pleasure. If you are interested then drop a message here or send an e-mail to mavens@spout.com. First come first serve. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/27/34455.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/27/2008 3:01:18 PM
Body: Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is the basic premise for many tales of woe. Shakespeare’s tragedies are largely built around the idea that a particular character overheard a snippet of a conversation at an inopportune time or had the misfortune to be arriving at the tail end of an epic age, one that they’re unable to sustain on their own weakened shoulders. Likewise, it’s always disappointing - albeit sometimes hugely entertaining - to watch the ego-besotten fall, victims of their own hubris. Take for instance the recent severe contraction of the independent film distribution market and the announced feature film, said to star Colin Hanks, chronicling the rise and fall of Tower Records, of all things. It’s with this in mind that August is, with some notable caveats, a compelling movie. Josh Hartnett stars as the ego-heavy co-founder of Landshark, a fictional “pure e” company that is looking for the funding to continue operations in mid-2001. That, as anyone over the age of 25 will be able to tell you, is about a week and a half before the entire bottom fell out of Web 1.0. And that’s just what happens to Landshark, as Harnett’s character amps up the charisma in an attempt to keep things afloat even as his personal relationships - including that with his brother and Landshark’s other founder - increasingly falter and fail. The movie’s biggest blunder is in the casting of Harnett in a role on which the entire movie depends. His character has almost no progression or growth throughout the movie, moving from slick and desperate to slick and only slightly more desperate over the course of the hour and a half. He acts like a jerk to those around him at the beginning when things are still going relatively well, so him being a jerk to those around him when the walls start closing in does not make for what could be called compelling development. Too often he substitutes rubbing his eyes for any sort of genuine emotion, and the constant references to his being a night owl don’t amount to anything, leading one to believe he’s either a hard partying swinger (not really an option considering how often we see him alone) or Batman, which just seems unlikely. All of this - the late nights, the changing clothes in the office, the constant combative attitude - seem to point to some sort of drug problem his character would seem to have, though nothing like that is even alluded to. Could it have been excised in editing? It’s possible. Again, this isn’t something I can point to, but the symptoms are all there and it actually seems notable by its omission. Underutilized is Robin Tunney as COO of Landshark. She’s given about 12 lines and eight of those are rousing Hartnett from bed or otherwise chiding him for being late to an important meeting. The one truly engaging performance in August is that from Adam Scott, who plays Hartnett’s brother and partner. While his role is filled with its own cliches (his wife and newborn baby follow him around like the car/driver identifying pointers in a NASCAR broadcast even when they’re not on-screen) but at least he attempts to clearly identify a Point A to start his character’s journey on and a Point B that he’s moving toward by the end.Also making a compelling cameo is Jason Calacanis, who appears as himself. Calacanis, of course, was one of the media superstars of both the first and current web eras and his appearance adds a little (very little, actually) credibility to the filmmaker’s attempts at recreating that time and place. Having worked for Jason for a while before AOL bought his Weblogs, Inc, it was kind of fun to see him appear, though I thought his portrayal of himself lacked some measure of realism. If you’re an online media watcher the film is certainly worth watching as a superficial and fictional case-study in Dot-Com Boom era history. If not this will have little to interest you as there’s not much to the movie itself. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:01:18 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/27/2008 3:01:18 PM Being in the wrong place at the wrong time is the basic premise for many tales of woe. Shakespeare’s tragedies are largely built around the idea that a particular character overheard a snippet of a conversation at an inopportune time or had the misfortune to be arriving at the tail end of an epic age, one that they’re unable to sustain on their own weakened shoulders. Likewise, it’s always disappointing - albeit sometimes hugely entertaining - to watch the ego-besotten fall, victims of their own hubris. Take for instance the recent severe contraction of the independent film distribution market and the announced feature film, said to star Colin Hanks, chronicling the rise and fall of Tower Records, of all things. It’s with this in mind that August is, with some notable caveats, a compelling movie. Josh Hartnett stars as the ego-heavy co-founder of Landshark, a fictional “pure e” company that is looking for the funding to continue operations in mid-2001. That, as anyone over the age of 25 will be able to tell you, is about a week and a half before the entire bottom fell out of Web 1.0. And that’s just what happens to Landshark, as Harnett’s character amps up the charisma in an attempt to keep things afloat even as his personal relationships - including that with his brother and Landshark’s other founder - increasingly falter and fail. The movie’s biggest blunder is in the casting of Harnett in a role on which the entire movie depends. His character has almost no progression or growth throughout the movie, moving from slick and desperate to slick and only slightly more desperate over the course of the hour and a half. He acts like a jerk to those around him at the beginning when things are still going relatively well, so him being a jerk to those around him when the walls start closing in does not make for what could be called compelling development. Too often he substitutes rubbing his eyes for any sort of genuine emotion, and the constant references to his being a night owl don’t amount to anything, leading one to believe he’s either a hard partying swinger (not really an option considering how often we see him alone) or Batman, which just seems unlikely. All of this - the late nights, the changing clothes in the office, the constant combative attitude - seem to point to some sort of drug problem his character would seem to have, though nothing like that is even alluded to. Could it have been excised in editing? It’s possible. Again, this isn’t something I can point to, but the symptoms are all there and it actually seems notable by its omission. Underutilized is Robin Tunney as COO of Landshark. She’s given about 12 lines and eight of those are rousing Hartnett from bed or otherwise chiding him for being late to an important meeting. The one truly engaging performance in August is that from Adam Scott, who plays Hartnett’s brother and partner. While his role is filled with its own cliches (his wife and newborn baby follow him around like the car/driver identifying pointers in a NASCAR broadcast even when they’re not on-screen) but at least he attempts to clearly identify a Point A to start his character’s journey on and a Point B that he’s moving toward by the end.Also making a compelling cameo is Jason Calacanis, who appears as himself. Calacanis, of course, was one of the media superstars of both the first and current web eras and his appearance adds a little (very little, actually) credibility to the filmmaker’s attempts at recreating that time and place. Having worked for Jason for a while before AOL bought his Weblogs, Inc, it was kind of fun to see him appear, though I thought his portrayal of himself lacked some measure of realism. If you’re an online media watcher the film is certainly worth watching as a superficial and fictional case-study in Dot-Com Boom era history. If not this will have little to interest you as there’s not much to the movie itself. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/brothers/MemberTagFilms.aspxbrothers
Number of films tagged: 79

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