iTunes Exclusive Episode The Founder

Greetings, Empire member and our members.
If you are hearing the sound of my voice, it means a couple of things are true.
Even for most, at least once in your life, you have listened to the clubhouse podcast
live every Sunday night, seven Eastern, four Pacific, your one stop shop for all things
pop culture.
But since you're hearing my voice right now, it means you subscribe to us on your favorite
podcasting app, because it's time for another...atunes exclusive.
Welcome.
My name is Rob.
I am the Executive Producer of the Clubhouse podcast.
And the Goldnarch gets a fair amount of money from me on a regular basis, I'm just saying.
I'm not alone for this particular episode, you're joining me across the desk, I see
it does from time to time, as the official fact checker of this show.
And a man who will enjoy a big Mac, if you let him.
You may know him as fun, Don Go, but his mom and even Don Ford, I'm going to call him Don
Ford, welcome sir.
Remember, the guy's from the Lego movie at the diff.
That would be Lord Miller, are you remembering them well?
They brought up chicken nuggets.
I love the chicken nuggets.
I love the chicken nuggets.
And a play of fish.
Raise it up a little bit so you can talk right into it.
There's a rubber talk straight into it.
All right.
Love the play of fish.
Love the chicken nuggets in the big Mac.
You might figure out where we're going to talk about, because whenever we do one of these,
it is to review something.
This is no different.
Director John Lee Hancock, who you might remember directing movies like The Blind
Side and Saving Mr. Banks, is back to direct a movie called The Founder.
Before we start this whole thing, sir.
You know, I got the invite.
We did double duty.
We had to swing the divine conqueror a little bit for the Empire, but we got to thank
our best friends.
I love it.
And a great marketing.
Thank Josh, everybody.
Thrill crew.
Some of our favorite people in the world, let us do these kinds of things for you.
This movie is about.
In quotation marks, the founder of McDonald's Ray Crock, Michael Keaton in the title role.
So in this film, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cartelini, B.J.
Novak, Laura Dern, Patrick Wilson, I mean, this thing's Chuck Fullstar, sir.
Couple from the office.
Mm-hm.
You know, let me park and wrecks and all, yeah.
So here's really what you need to know, like, I don't think I have to go too deep
into this story.
It's the story of Ray Crock, K-R-O-C, how you spell his last name.
If you've been to a McDonald's restaurant, like the shoes, you know, that's CR-O-C.
Okay, I was wrong.
My spell was the one we all saw.
Okay.
If you've ever been into a McDonald's restaurant, you've seen his picture etched into a plaque
in the wall in every store.
This is the story of how that came to be.
He originally was a traveling salesman, and in the beginning of the film, he is trying
to sell a multi-nazzled milkshake maker, already, and not doing well.
Well, out of nowhere, he gets an order for multiples of these things.
By a couple of brothers, Dick and Mac McDonald played by Offerman and Lynch in a little place
in San Bernardino, and they are the McDonald brothers.
So he's in Missouri, he's trying to figure out what's going on here.
So he drives across country to meet with them and finds out that they have invented a system
where he, because at this time in America, you're talking like the late 50s, ish, yeah.
Where driving restaurants were the big rage, or you would drive, like a sonic, or if you're
older, like me, and remember the old A and W restaurants, of course, with the car hops and
everything.
Yeah.
So he goes up to the counter.
He orders a cheeseburger, a fry, and a drink.
Guy takes his money, gives him his food, he goes to what's this, this is your order, sorry.
It's impossible.
It's sort of it.
He's like, no, sorry, that's a special order.
So he has to know more about how this food is getting there so quick.
So they gave him a tour on how everything works.
And he's just enamored by this, because nobody else in the country can do this.
So he convinces them to franchise, because the only option was to drive through where it
takes forever, or you're going to have to go to the diner, right?
Or the local thing.
So you have to go sit down.
That's something you really take on the go.
Yeah.
And so he decides to give them the idea to franchise.
And it goes from, I don't really want to go any deeper than that.
If you know the story, you know the story, okay?
As the best way for me to put this is what I put in my written review, which is conveniently
located at www.theclubhousepodcast.com, which is our website.
Absolutely.
It is.
This story is one of those things that's one of the reasons the rest of the world hates
this.
It's greed, it's swindling, it's cunning, it's everything.
Everything capitalism.
What I've heard in the past, I don't know, because you know how sometimes it's based
on a true story.
That's what it says in the beginning.
Okay.
Now, I heard they actually gave away free franchises before in the beginning.
No.
So that's what the movie was responsible for franchising the company.
But in franchising, the share that they got was very, very small.
Who?
The franchise?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
in line with what the McDonald brothers want from their company or what they think is their company.
I don't know what it is about Michael Keaton.
Batman.
Always been a fan of Michael Keaton. I go back to night shift, back to Mr. Mom,
back to the old, back to gun, the hoe, even back to the old days.
Always been a fan of this man. Up to spotlight. Yes.
Or even more recently a bird man, which is actually probably was a year before.
As he gets older, he's getting even better. I don't know what it is. I don't know how this is
happening, but he's getting even better and this film shows it. Like he doesn't look like
crock at all. All right. But he conveys the characteristic, if I can get my language right,
of this man brilliantly. Now question, do you always see a mess
Keaton through the role? Or do you see? I do. I do. Because again, there is such a, if you look at
Michael Keaton and you could probably Google Ray Crock, and so you can see what he looks like.
But he doesn't have, like, they could have done prosthetics to make the thing work,
but they don't have to because it's all about the performance here.
And Keaton delivers. Yeah. It looks totally different. Yeah. Completely different. Yeah.
But Keaton delivers and delivers huge. As he always does and he just keeps getting better.
Just when I see a performance, I don't know what. This is the peak. He raises the bar again.
And the biggest surprise to me in this was offered. Ron Swanson. Because you look at the
roles that offer men's done, whether it's Parks and Rec, or whether it's where the Miller's,
or whether it's 22 Jump Street. He kind of always plays the same guy. Yeah. Ron Swanson. There's a
little tin just wants it in this. Okay. But he really plays this really, really straight.
There's no tongue and cheekness to it. There's no, I don't think I'm a bumlinian,
anybody. Everybody else does kind of feel to it. He was, like, his role in 24 that was minor.
I'd have to go back. He was in season two. He played the right way. Yeah. Okay. But no,
because he's, he looks like everybody's seven great shop teacher. He has that haircut in the glasses.
But he plays a guy who genuinely is a small town guy that wants to have a bigger view of life.
He wants, he wants to succeed. And John Carroll Lynch playing his older brother
plays it just as well. Like he plays the brother who just wants his brother. All he wants in
his life is to see his brother be successful. And he's the one that kind of talks,
dicked into doing this. Because dick's kind of, he's kind of hesitant. He's like, look,
this is what we do. Because at that time, they had five or six stores. Mostly, most in California,
one in Phoenix. Because they were worried that if there were too many stores, it would saturate
quality would die. And that's actually addressed as the film goes on as well.
Question on this. Uh-huh. Okay. You know my history of working to break your international.
And I've worked my fair share of food services as well. The franchise is usually that it's about
five percent of sales goes to the national thing. You said they got swindled. Was that about
a get a mouth that you would say? You're talking about the owners of the franchise. The, the,
the, the, not the franchise eats with the company themselves, the owners. Like if all three of them
did lowball themselves. Like a more like a more original deal for all, for each one of them,
it's 1.9 percent. So each, each got 1.9. So that's about five percent, which is still
normal today, which is normal. But I'm, but I'm talking about each one of them only got less than
2 percent. So from an operating standpoint, that's hard to, to keep things afloat. And B.J.
Novak's character, Harry Sondborn. Yeah. He plays a very, his, he doesn't have a huge role,
but he has a very, very pivotal role, because once he meets crock, everything changes. Like
raise been kind of kind of, kind of swindily, kind of slimy here and there. Novak's character
pushes him straight through the barrier into full blown rogue, doing whatever he wants, however he wants,
and basically telling the McDonald Brothers to go pound sand. Wow. It is, I, first of all, this
is an hour 55. How was the flow? First watch. Look. Yeah. It's going to be 35 minutes. Whoa. Okay.
The first act sails. The second act weighs down just a little bit, but not enough for me to go
where is the chase and how can we cut to it. The third act is incredibly strong in this, as things
start to come to a head between Ray and the brothers, and then the aftermath they're in.
It gets, you just sit there and you go, oh my god, this is happening. There's a lot of that in the
third act. Okay. And then, of course, at the end, it tells you what happens to everybody afterwards.
It's the only way I can describe this story is beautifully tragic.
It's a wonderful film. I am a huge fan of this film, but it's not the feel good movie of the year.
Now, question did it show like real pictures at the end? At the end, yes. Okay. And it was surprising
how a lot of the cast for instance, Novak's character. Novak really does favor his character really well.
Linda Cartelini, who plays Joan Smithy wife of one of the franchisees in Minneapolis.
Can we have her due to movies where she looks the same? Because every time I see her, I'm like,
oh, that's Linda Cartelini, but I don't know what to do at the end of the film.
But she's great. It's a strong cast. It's one of those stories that you watch and you just go,
so I can see this coming a mile away, but I can't turn my head away. Like, I have, like, oh my god.
Especially if you, I knew enough about the story to be dangerous going in. Yeah. Like, I knew
basically how this was going to end. Because I've done a little bit of research. I mean,
you're talking McDonald's, the second largest private insurer in the world. You want to know
who the only company that they're, they run behind who Walmart. Walmart is the only private
employer that's has more employees in the world than McDonald's. McDonald's is in 119 countries.
And they address that as the film goes on. The direction here, gorgeous, visually, absolutely stunning.
They actually had to re-construct some of the old restaurants, so that they could film it.
Back in the day, because you've seen the pictures of, like, with the two arches on either side of
the restaurant, people are walking up to it. That's what they all looked like for years. Okay.
Oh, I just, I don't want to say too much because I don't want to just go too deep, but
the way this story unfolds. Your jaw drops, your heart breaks.
It's, it's, it's a great film. Not to feel good movie, but a great movie. It is. It's one of
those films that, it's like, wow, I'm torn because I want to say do a little bit of research on
the story before you go in. But I thought Wikipedia, first couple paragraphs, there you go.
Yeah, I mean, you could do it that way. Okay. But by the same token, I'm just like,
oh, I, I also would be interested to see people that go into this cold. You know what I mean?
Yeah, you want to see people. Yeah. So, any other questions that you have before we rate this thing?
Not really. I think you've really covered about the whole kitten cocoodle. All right. So,
what we're going to do a final analysis, our final analysis on this show is a little bit different
than most shows you listen to. We're not going to give you thumbs up thumbs down. I'm not going to
give you emojis or letters or numbers or, you know, skywriting or anything like that.
There's two questions involved here. The first question is, what I see this film again, if the
answer is no, then we're done here. If the answer is yes, the follow-up question is, how far am I
willing to go to see it? And the spectrum runs from best to worst, full price at a theater,
twilight, matinee, early morning on a Saturday, or in a weekend, second one at the dollar theater,
Netflix. I'm sorry, red box Netflix cable. So, Rob, what'd you see this film again? I would,
I would see this film again. Okay. What level are you willing to go? I'm going to pull a dawn here.
Okay. For a first viewing, it would not hurt my feelings for somebody to pay a full price for this.
All right. Because it really is a great film.
Subsequent viewings, I would rent it or own the blue ray.
No, no, wow. Okay. I would own this blue ray, because number one of the performances are that strong.
Number two, I would love to see what the extras look like on this blue ray. So this would be worth
the 10 bucks in the theater. You will not. No, it wouldn't hurt my feelings at all. Okay. I wouldn't
necessarily call it it first date movie. Yeah. If you're with somebody and you're both kind of like
this looks interesting, then yeah, I mean, but not really good as a first date movie. I wouldn't.
What would you change about it if you were the director? I don't know that I would change anything.
Okay. Because you can't change the story because the story is what the story is.
But man, what a story. Well, you know, I'm intrigued and even though I got the invite,
wasn't able to do it, because we're doing this for the Empire. Absolutely. We still got to think
of best friends. I lied in the great marketing. Thanks, Joshua, by the else for the invite.
It is the founder. By the time you hear this, it will be available for you to go check out.
So you probably want to do so. That being said, let's do the plugs already.
Visit our website, the aforementioned www.theclubhousepodcast.com. Find out everything you need to
know in some stuff you don't. Make sure you follow us on social media on Twitter at clubhouse show.
Also on Facebook and Instagram and Periscope, the clubhouse podcast all three words in that order.
Are you going to wind up somewhere else? You can follow me on social media. I'm at yes,
that Rob Irvin, that has spelled ERV. I am my normal co-host for this show.
It's Chad Womack. You can follow him on social media at chat npg69. I'm at fondango and you
can email me at dawn at theclubhousepodcast.com. Email dawn for information on how we can
come to a live show for you. We love hanging out with the Empire and doing live shows.
You can email me if you'd like questions, comments, concerns, tell me to go pound sand.
I am Rob at theclubhousepodcast.com. Chad is Chad at theclubhousepodcast.com.
Charlotte Parker is on Pinterest because we are morally obligated to say that.
And Jules Womack, we can safely assume she's where we're chatting at this point.
Our normal show is every Sunday, night, seven Eastern, four Pacific live. You're one stop shop
for all things pop culture or just keep subscribing on your favorite podcast the app.
And you get all this extra cool stuff too. So until next time, for dawn and the Empire,
I'm Rob. Clubhouse is closed. They're a nice restaurant scene. You can head Brittany Palmer,
like dressed up for supper club. I'm just saying.