'Too soon' to ask about Heath

It was only a matter of time during the Q&A session after the premiere of "August" that someone would ask star Josh Hartnett about Heath Ledger's death. This one came three questions in.

"I'd like to direct this one to Josh," the gentleman on the far side of the Library Theatre began. "We all got some sad news today ... "

And that's when the boos started. And the jeers. And people calling out, "Too soon!"

The questioner finally had to turn to face the enraged crowd and sheepishly cry, "I'm sorry!"

Hartnett's response was short, un-miked and drowned out by the angry crowd.

As for the movie itself, it may be too soon for '00s nostalgia. Set in the month before the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001, the film follows the slow, self-destructive spiral of the hotshot head of a failing Web start-up.

Director Austin Chick, working from a script by Howard Rodman, peppers the film with reminders of just how frivolous life was in the days before the terrorist attacks -- Ben Affleck was entering rehab, Tom and Nicole were splitting up and America was upset with George W. Bush for taking too much vacation time. By extension, I take it we're supposed to look at the slow unraveling of a go-go big-talker's Internet dreams as something that will soon be rendered meaningless with the ensuing loss of life. One scene in a venture capitalist's even makes sure to slowly reveal the twin towers outside the window.

They're right, this guy's problems aren't all that bad. And by using Al Qaeda's New York "spectacular" as the boogeyman just over the horizon, they let us think something could happen at any minute. But no, nothing ever does. Not really. Not in any way that ever made the film feel like it had really begun. Despite a great soundtrack that tells us we're seeing something more exciting than we actually are, and a pretty good performance by Hartnett, the film winds up grinding down instead of winding up.

-- Patrick Day