the founder
Grease is the Word: The Founder
American audiences love a white douchebag who is also a genius. Their shittiness is mostly outweighed by their ingenuity. You may be a dipshit that can’t really relate to anyone and dares to put “I’m CEO, Bitch” on your business card, but at least you created Facebook. And you might have daddy issues and an inability to relate to basically anyone, while also backstabbing your closest friend (which seems like a trend), but at least you created he iPod. The Social Network and Steve Jobs, amongst several films of their ilk, are excellent and okay films, and while their desire is to deconstruct the myth of said white male asshole genius, they can’t help but be at least marginally complicit in valorizing them. (That they’re both written by Aaron Sorkin might have something to do with it.) The Founder, directed by John Lee Hancock and written by The Wrestler scribe Robert D. Siegel, looks like these films from the trailer, even from the poster. Michael Keaton, as McDonald’s’ first franchiser Ray Kroc, stands in front of the “golden arches”, they themselves such a piece of iconography, as if trying to steal the spotlight from such a quintessential logo and standin for the American Dream. Above his head in all caps: “Risk Taker. Rule Breaker. Game Changer.” They cleverly forgot one word: Villain. Read the rest of this entry »
I Like Things That Look Like Mistakes 