6:30 p.m.	demonlover Olivier Assayas (France, 2002)

Assayas punctured the dot-com era's technology boosterism with some much-needed fear and loathing in this appropriately hyperactive tale of corporate sleaze and greed, twenty-first-century style. In the brave new world of 2001, it seems there's only one thing worth really fighting for, and that's Internet porn. Several shadowy multinational corporations have sent their attractive minions (Chloë Sevigny, Connie Nielsen, and Gina Gershon, among others) to scheme, lie, or even kill for a stake in TokyoAnime, a Japanese company that produces 3-D animated pornography. Though the plot hops from Parisian boardrooms to Tokyo nightclubs and Mexican badlands, there's only one true setting: the wilds of cyberspace, and the distinct unease that lurks there. Sourly flavored by a disquieting soundtrack by Sonic Youth and the fragmented glass-and-neon visions of cinematographer Denis Lenoir, demonlover is "a gorgeously fashioned meditation on life in the postmodern slipstream" (Boston Globe).

—Jason Sanders

• Written by Assayas. Photographed by Denis Lenoir. With Chloë Sevigny, Charles Berling, Connie Nielsen, Gina Gershon. (129 mins, In French with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Palm Pictures)