The Founder (2016)

★★★
Ray Kroc's venerable restaurant chain, like all the big-name retailers and food establishments that dot the landscape, started out as one store. It has endured periods of low profit, lawsuits, failed products (though I loved the Arch Deluxe), a critical documentary, a critical book and shifting eating habits to remain the go-to place for a quick meal and senior citizens who gravitate to the nearest store for coffee every morning. It has also inspired parody ("They got the Big Bac. We got the Big Mic.") and a sly pop culture reference courtesy of Quentin Tarantino. The Founder gives us the story of how Ray Kroc turned a lone hamburger stand in San Bernardino into the national brand known as McDonald's. Kroc's rise to the top of the restaurant food chain is an intriguing story so good it's taught in business schools. Director John Lee Hancock presents a struggling milkshake machine vendor in his 50s who finally sees an opportunity to find the success that has eluded him after years of effort. If he has to take someone else's concept and run with it, then so be it.

Freaky (2020)

½ star
Freaky is so bad it makes me want to watch The Hot Chick all over again even though I didn't care for Rob Schneider's lame body switching movie. Just when this genre has seemingly run its course, along comes another filmmaker who thinks he can revive it. The guilty party this time is Christopher Landon, the writer/director of the decent Happy Death Day series. His attempt to meld the body switching movie with horror and comedy is a disaster. More than that, it's pitiful. The opening kills were badly staged and completely unfunny, and it's all downhill from there. The plot involves an ancient dagger that can cause the attacker and victim to switch bodies. Landon's stab at the concept involves switching members of the opposite sex, an idea that has been explored only a handful of times, but I've never really seen a movie mine this scenario to its fullest potential. The one that I think did it the best was 2006's It's a Boy Girl Thing. I already mentioned Rob Schneider's middling comedy, which focused too much on Rachel McAdams in Schneider's body and not the other way around.

Firestarter (2022)

½ star
Firestarter is slow burn torture. The actors display no conviction. They recite their lines woodenly and walk around as if wading through quicksand while wearing concrete boots. The victims of psychic attacks react like pod people. The tepid direction looks to have been inspired by Albert Pyun. The villains appear bored. The climactic firefight has all the excitement of a fireplace screensaver. I expected more from Blumhouse Productions, which has established a good reputation for decent horror movies. Taking the 1984 Stephen King adaptation and passing it through the Blumhouse sausage factory should have yielded better results, but instead we get a movie that fails not spectacularly but in whimpering fashion.

Forces of Nature (1999)

★½
Forces of Nature is a Planes, Trains and Automobiles retread, and not a very good one. The plot features two dissimilar characters stuck together on a road trip using a variety of conveyances to get to their destination. In what could have been resolved in a matter of minutes turns into an endless parade of mishaps. That's unfortunate, because Ben Affleck's performance is really good. He takes a weak script and salvages the story somewhat, but eventually he falls victim to the decisions made by writer Marc Lawrence and director Bronwen Hughes. Sandra Bullock, on the other hand, gives what is quite possibly the most irritating performance of her career.

Father Stu (2022)

★★★
I applaud Mark Wahlberg’s determination to make films that he could show his kids. If this new direction in his career provides personal and spiritual fulfillment, then I hope the best for him, and I look forward to seeing what he has in store for us. I wish he didn’t regret his involvement in Boogie Nights (1997). It’s a masterpiece of writing and acting, with a soundtrack loaded with many iconic ‘70s and ‘80s hits, all incorporated seamlessly into the action. It helped solidify his position as a dependable leading man, one that was integral in shedding his Marky Mark persona. In making Father Stu, he invested millions of his own money into its production, much like Mel Gibson had done years earlier for his own faith-based film, The Passion of the Christ. (Getting Gibson to co-star was a smart decision.) It tells the story of Father Stuart Long, a former boxer who became a priest after a near death experience. Wahlberg has played gritty characters before, but this time he gets to bring one to redemption, displaying his range as an actor in the process. It’s a remarkable job.

Fight Club (1999)

★★★★
Fight Club is really a tough one to pin down. I praised it upon its release but had reservations about its ending, which seemed like a surrender to big explosive finales than as a commentary on anything. I saw it again eight years later and its effect was much stronger. Now, seeing it once again twenty years later, its point is clearer than ever. It’s inevitable that this happens. Movies are free to make a point and comment on the current state of things, but that point can be lost on those who lack the experience to see it. I was not an office worker in 1999, but a college student on my way to a degree. I was in my fifth year, the result of changing my major and working full time in customer service, which limited the number of classes I could take. It was getting to be a drag. I absolutely couldn’t wait to graduate, so that I could get a better job and end the term papers, the studying, the all-nighters. While my situation at the time could be envisioned as being stuck in an endless trap (I graduated after my sixth year), I don’t believe Fight Club’s themes extend to a prolonged undergrad existence. In actuality, there are two themes present here. One is the uncertainty of the upcoming new millennium and the chaos that could ensue. The other is how suffocating a monotonous existence can be. I once walked into a Walgreens wearing my profession on my sleeve. A stock clerk whispered to me if I wanted to trade jobs. I don’t know if a fight club would have been right for her, but according to this movie, the tension built up after mundane employment could require extreme methods to provide relief.

Fun (1995)

★
Fun is neither revealing nor intellectual. Rather, it is poorly executed and mostly irritating. How in the world can a movie survive when the two lead characters are rude, hopeless, psychotic and irredeemable, and are presented as such without any method of humanizing? I've seen good movies about bad people before, but Fun makes no attempt to analyze them, or even show us that they got the punishment they deserve.

The 15:17 to Paris (2018)

★★★½

The arrival of The 15:17 to Paris couldn’t be any timelier. Pessimism flows out of Hollywood like a river of spoiled molasses. It’s gotten so thick that seeing a trailer featuring any number of arrogant stars induces a gag reflex. I will not discuss the larger issue of celebrity discontent in this space; that can be better discussed elsewhere. I will discuss how Clint Eastwood’s latest movie eschews casting conventions to deliver a product without the dead weight of superstardom dragging it down like an anchor. There is rage everywhere in the 24-hour news cycle, most of it delivered from C.N.N., M.S.N.B.C. and soapboxes being crushed by the pompous grandstanding of the likes of Madonna and Mark Ruffalo. Now comes Eastwood, to remind us that we don’t need to listen to them. There are better people out there with worthier things to say.