Written by / 7/13/2017 / No comments / , , , ,

MICHAEL KEATON DEVELOPS MCDONALD'S AS THE FOUNDER

What 1970's Movie Is This From? Hint, a Boston tune plays YEAR: 2017
The problem with Hollywood-moralizing is it makes a theme or agenda override the characters, especially when based on real folks like, for instance, young Facebook phenom Mark Zuckerberg,  torn apart in THE SOCIAL NETWORK and now it's McDonald's mogul Ray Croc's turn under the hatchet — so this review will have to fight preachy with preachy....

Michael Keaton, an actor who can make anyone if not likable then completely realistic, is a blank slate here as THE FOUNDER, with its title bathed in irony (although Croc did find the restaurant, and its potential, as opposed to creating it). Keaton sleepwalks through the role, in slow motion... despite displaying a ghost of his usual wired b.s. artist, starting out as a lowly milkshake salesman traveling a nowhere road from greasy spoon to spoon — rejection after rejection. This is where his persona should have been grounded — when he had nothing and was hungry, anything would be possible... Instead it's just a flash of benign conversations and doors closing, which leads to the inevitable partnership with the McDonald brothers, whose small town burger joint invented the word Fast-Food as the movie drags from one scene to the next. Ray Croc is mostly shown from other people's reaction: Dumbfounded stares from his so-called business partners and wife (a witchy Laura Dern) lets us know how to feel about the guy who's climbing to the top...

This clown is scary and perverse... McMovieScore: *
There's potential when Croc takes the boys out to dinner during the first act with a montage through narration (voice-over-scene) of how McDonald's came to be. If this were the movie, it just might've had something... At the very least, a purpose and destination: Two meek fellas who only wanted to sell precooked food to their small town, not the world, as was Croc's ultimate goal: Served up just to set up the proverbial damsel in distress, screaming while tied to train tracks by the villain with a pointy mustache and knowing grin — hissed at by the audience because they're supposed to feel a certain way instead of figuring things out for themselves: Hollywood just can't tell a non-fiction story any longer... At least not with more than one dimension... So let's wait (and wait) for the biopic of how The Motion Picture Industry came to be: By those wonderfully endearing, sympathetic artists or the cutthroat millionaires who allowed them to flicker on the screen?
Proof that McDonalds is an evil tyrannical machine of death? Anyone who makes money is just plain bad

Share This Post :
Tags : , , , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.

All Time Popular

Featured Post

ROBERT BEATTY WITH TERRY MOORE IN 'POSTMARK FOR DANGER'

Title: POSTMARK FOR DANGER Year: 1955 Rating: ** Twenty years before Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY, involving a first-act wher...

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM

WWW.CULTFILMFREAKS.COM
Movie Reviews, Interviews, Articles and Pop Culture from White Heat to Blue City

RIP ACTOR KEN HUTCHISON

TOTAL HITS

Popular Trending

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE

FOUNDED BY JAMES M. TATE
RANDOM QUOTE: "The Love Generation... Vicious little creeps!" Peter Strauss, Rich Man Poor Man

FILM NOIR & NEO NOIR CRIME

FAVORITES SHORTLIST

1)OTLEY 2)HELL IS A CITY 3)ROBBERY 4)THE FEARMAKERS 5)CANYON PASSAGE 6)VIOLENT SATURDAY 7)HOT CARS 8)JUNGLE STREET 9)THE CROWDED SKY 10)THE ROARING TWENTIES 11) ANATOMY OF A MURDER 12)SHARKS' TREASURE 13)SWEENEY TWO 14)RAIDERS FROM BENEATH THE SEA 15)HARDCORE 16)THE BREAK 17)WHITE HEAT 18)AL CAPONE 19)HIDDEN FEAR 20)FALLEN ANGEL 21)NIGHT CREATURES 22)THE ASPHALT JUNGLE 23)ASH WEDNESDAY 24)THE SYSTEM 25)AIR PATROL 26)THE STONE KILLER 27)EASY LIVING 28)WILLIAM CONRAD'S BRAINSTORM 29)FRENZY 30)THE MAN FROM LARAMIE 1)DANA ANDREWS 2)JAMES CAGNEY 3)STANLEY BAKER 4)MARLON BRANDO 5)CHARLES BRONSON1)VIRGINIA MAYO 2)SUE LYON 3)GENE TIERNEY 4)MERRY ANDERS 5)FAYE DUNAWAY DIRECTORS 1)JACQUES TOURNEUR 2)RICHARD FLEISCHER 3)VAL GUEST 4)STANLEY KUBRICK 5)OTTO PREMINGER 6)ORSON WELLES 7)JOHN GUILLERMAN 8)JOHN LANDIS 9)JOHN CARPENTER 10)MICHAEL WINNER

BRITISH NEW WAVE CINEMA

RARITIES AND EXPLOITATION

HAMMER HORROR & THRILLER

Popular This Month

CHARLES BRONSON CINEMA

CINEMA OF DANA ANDREWS

WESTERN GENRE REVIEWS

PEAKING INTO THE SIXTIES

KICKING IN THE EIGHTIES

TALES AND REFLECTIONS

REVVING THE SEVENTIES

FOR HORROR MOVIE REVIEWS

Most Popular Last Year

RETURN TO THE HOMEPAGE