Startup.com

In the future, Startup.com, which set out to take a candid snapshot of a typical dot-com's rocket-fueled ride onto the NASDAQ leader board, may well be seen as the definitive time capsule of the Turn of the Millennium Internet boom and bust. Filmmakers Chris Hegedus (The War Room) and Jehane Noujaim follow the rise and fall of a web business launched by high school buddies-cum-young millionaires Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman. Starting in August 1999, spirits are high as the pair find venture capital and go swiftly from eight employees using laptops perched on dining room chairs to a $100 million company with 233 workers and a large Manhattan office. Even before the bottom drops out of the dot-com economy and their company implodes, a rift forms in Tom and Kaleil's friendship over their wildly different approaches to business and life. A profoundly illustrative portrait of the obscenely high highs that defined this pivotal moment at the apex of 20th century progress, and the self-devouring lows that followed in its wake, this is highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)