THE FOUNDER [2016]

You ever care how fast-food empire McDonald's got it start?
Me neither.  However director John Lee Hancock's The Founder does help make it somewhat interesting.
It follows businessman Ray Kroc as he takes the McDonalds brother's idea of fast-food and turns it into a towering franchise.
Micheal Keaton's dominating portrayal of Kroc is what makes the film, as the rest is a little lacking in intrigue.  Sadly the rest of the cast of characters are shamefully underwritten but thankfully actors like John Carroll Lynch, Nick Offerman & B.J. Novak have just enough acting chops to give their characters a bit of flavor.  It's not a great film, a little TV-movie-ish in fact but it's got enough going for it to at least give it a chance.

3 milkshakes without the milk out of 5

SAVING MR. BANKS [2013]

John Lee Hancock's Saving Mr. Banks is an absolutely charming historical drama about Walt Disney struggling with author P.L. Travers to get the film rights to the studio classic Mary Poppins.
It's an interesting character study that's both heart-warming and surprisingly dark in areas that's largely based around the terrific performances from Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks.  At times it reeks of the Disney empire stroking it's inflated ego and gets a bit too predictably fluffy but when it's at it's best it's simply wonderful.

3½ fruit bowls for the swimming pool out of 5