‘The Hour’ is about a new current-affairs show on BBC in 1956, and what happens in the lives of the team members involved in the making of the show. The series takes us through the journey of the show from a staid newspaper presentation to the visual and ‘breaking’ news reportage. With spies, honey traps and corruption thrown into the mix, danger is just around the corner for the intrepid Producer Isabel (Bel) Rowley ( Romola Garai) , and the journalist Frederick (Freddie) Lyon ( Ben Whishaw).
Well written and acted, this series is a good watch. The only crib being at times, the writers try too hard to fit it into the thriller genre, and dumb down the proceedings a bit (like the last episode of season 2). But in the end, it is still engaging enough and keeps you hooked throughout.
Years after the brothers sold to Mr. Kroc, someone asked Richard McDonald if he had any regrets. None, Mr. Halberstam relates. ‘I would have wound up in some skyscraper somewhere with about four ulcers and eight tax attorneys trying to figure out how to pay all my income tax,” Mr. McDonald replied.
Source: NYTimes.com
Towards the end of the movie, ‘The Founder’, Ray Kroc (Michael Keaton) says some uncharitable words to the two McDondald brothers who actually started the first McDonalds’s joint and put together the Speedee System. Going by the above NY Times article and the book “Behind the Golden Arches”, it is difficult to imagine if a) Ray Kroc actually said it b) it was so easy for Ray Kroc to put together the money to buy off McDonald brothers.
Barring these two, ‘The Founder’ pretty much captures the entrepreneurial spirit of 50 something Ray Kroc and does a good job of presenting how he takes the idea from McDonald brothers and creates a nationwide fast food chain around it. The movie showcases his trials and tribulations, his epiphanies, and his personal transformation, and Michael Keaton delivers a good performance. There is a good deal of coverage about his team and their contribution–Harry Sonnenborn coming up with the real estate investment model, Fred L. Turner who became chairman of the company and June Martino, who started off as a book keeper grew along withe company.
What the movie misses out or rather omits, are the many innovations and backward integration that the company was involved in under Ray Kroc’s leadership and the overseas expansion of the brand. One has to read to the book ‘Behind the Arches’ to get a better idea of these.
Even without these, ‘The Founder’ is a good watch, and a must watch for all the entrepreneurs.
(Spoilers ahead) The much anticipated season of Game of Thrones is here. GOT is popular all over the world as a show with all its elements, particularly its audacious storytelling. It stays true to this aspect even in the final season. One of its key features of the storytelling is the ability to surprise audience both with the twists to the key characters’ journeys and their sudden exposition.
If it were to left to someone else they might have kept Jon Snow ( now Aegon Targaryen) in dark about his legacy. But this is no ordinary show. So the first episode ends with a definite chance for the character arcs to go haywire based on this new twist. What’s also very remarkable about the show is how consistently all characters seem to chase the throne once they attain a certain power. Eventually, will Samwell Tarly will go after the throne too?
