daily stream: insidious fast-food deliciousness
2016’s *The Founder* is newly returned to US Netflix; also on Prime and Apple TV on both sides of the Atlantic
When I was a kid — in the 1970s and early 80s — McDonald’s was a rare treat. Since I’ve been an adult, McDonald’s has been a place to stop when you’re on a long road trip and need a caffeine top-up: their coffee is good. (I’m not coffee snob, though I’ve heard lots of coffee snobs also concede that this is Truth.) I had my first McDonald’s hamburger in probably a decade around 2015, after a night out consuming much alcohol and in need of carbs and fat to soak up the booze (spoiler: it did the trick). I had a subsequent McDonald’s hamburger this past autumn, when I was with my dad and we were both deep in grief over my Mom’s death (though my dad is a lifelong Micky D’s lover, and when I asked him what he wanted to do for dinner one night when I was with him, he was all: “McDonald’s!”).
In both cases, those McDonald’s hamburgers were so good. I say this as someone who is all “Ultraprocessed food is killing us!” and “Corporations are evil!” and “Grass fed for the win!” and so on, tedious progressive scolding etc. And yet: So. Good.
Anyway, 2016’s The Founder — starring Michael Keaton in an intense, superb performance as Ray Kroc, the guy who made McDonald’s the global force that it is today — gives you an idea about how we got to a point at which even people how know how insidious fast food is have to concede that we are all in the thrall of this cult. This is a movie that is rather brilliant and kind of inspiring… until it turns frightening and even sinister. It’s a dark tale of the beginning of end-stage capitalism as profit above all. And as terrifyingly delicious above all.
US: stream on Netflix; rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
UK: stream on Prime and StudioCanal Presents (via Prime); rent/buy on Prime and Apple TV
See The Founder at Letterboxd for more viewing options.
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