e-Dreams Movie Review

All great things come to an end, and the dot-com era embodies that perfectly. Beneath a mound of bankruptcy paperwork lies the remains of a former dot-com darling, the company Kozmo.com, an online convenience store stocked with ice cream, porn videos, and other basic necessities of a urban dweller, all hand-delivered by couriers within an hour.

Designed in 1997 by two college roommates -- Joseph Park, a 27 year old Goldman Sachs banker, and Yong Kang – Kozmo flamed out in three short years, raising more than $280 million in venture capital funding and from partnerships with such bigwigs as Starbucks and Amazon.com. By December 1999, the company boasted 4,000 employees in 11 cities, its barking CEO Park attracting all kinds of media attention. The company was set for an IPO in May 2000... until April 14, 2000, the day the stock market took its first big dive, ending the Internet era. By April 13, 2001, Kozmo was out of money and ceased operations.

Unlike the earlier, similar documentary Startup.com, which chronicled the rise and fall of another dot-com, govWorks.com, e-Dreams focuses both on its original founders, especially Park, and on the common folks that ran the day-to-day operations. The contrast is amazing, showing how a cult persona can convince anyone that any idea is the Next Big Thing.

The film's director, Wonsuk Chin (Too Tired to Die), expertly juxtaposes upper management company meetings with on-the-spot interviews with the bike messengers, general managers, and floor staff that kept Kozmo humming. The film's images give a backbone to the company and provide an emotional edge to its ultimate demise.

The most satisfying part of the film comes in understanding, to a degree, the expectations of numerous CEOs commanding these Titanic-type businesses. In the film's final interviews with Park, we learn what happens when the money dries up and backers don’t return phone calls. In the end, the name of the game was profit, and if you couldn't make money, even the dreamers got the axe.

Screened at the 24th Annual Mill Valley Film Festival.