Startup.com (2001)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Directors:

Chris Hegedus
Jehane Noujaim

Release Date:

25 May 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Tagline:

The rise and fall of the American dream.

Plot:

Traces the birth and failure of new media company govWorks.com.

Plot Keywords:

Business | Venture Capital | Business Manager | Businessmen | Business Deal

Awards:

9 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Kaleil Isaza Tuzman	...	Himself
Tom Herman	...	Himself
Kenneth Austin	...	Himself
Tricia Burke	...	Herself
Roy Burston	...	Himself
David Camp	...	Himself
José Feliciano	...	Himself
Dora Glottman	...	Herself
Julian Herbstein	...	Himself
Christina Ortez	...	Herself
Jonathan Angus	...	Himself
Chieh Cheung	...	Himself
Sean Coar	...	Himself
Ambika Conroy	...	Herself
Patrick Cromer	...	Himself

MPAA:

Rated R for language.

Runtime:

107 min | Argentina:105 min (Buenos Aires Festival Internacional de Cine Independiente)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:13 | Germany:o.Al. | UK:15 | USA:R | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Highland Capital Partners - Two International Place, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Company:

Noujaim Films

Trivia:

"The Competitor" who is donning the govWorks.com cap, Bryan R. Mundy of ezGov.com, died in a house fire six days before the movie premiered at Sundance.

Soundtrack:

Sofa Rockers

Good, but With Some Flaws

Right now, this is the definitive documentary on the dot.com culture

that essentially ceased to exist so many months ago. I feel there are

two ways the film could have been improved. First, the producers should

have added subtitles to indicate where the protagonists are in the film.

Pretty much all offices look the same, and it would have been nice to

know when the two were at their place, at the consultants' offices, at

the venture capitalists', etc. It would have been helpful to put names

to the numerous faces that come in and out of the picture as well.

In addition, and more importantly, the film never gets into the

specifics of why GovWorks.com failed. One day the company had two

employees, then they had seventy, then they had ten. Why? What was the

business plan? What were the goals of the company? What did the Web site

look like? I think the story of how this business worked (or didn't

work) is at least as interesting as the personal tensions between the

two main characters. When they release the DVD of this film an ideal

second disk would consist of additional information along these lines,

as well as a mock-up of the GovWorks site.