Michael J. Fox on living with Parkinson’s

 If you've ever known someone who has suffered from Parkinson's Disease, you know how debilitating affliction it becomes as it advances, a malady beyond cure. I've witnessed the devastations of Parkinson's and sometimes found it difficult to watch Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, a lively documentary that charts Fox's rise as a comic actor while showing the ways in which Parkinson's now tends to dominate his daily life. As tough as it can be to watch Fox struggle to speak, walk (he often falls and breaks things) and proceed with his life, director Davis Guggenheim's movie demonstrates that Fox remains funny, reflective, candid and entertaining. Clips from Back to the Future and Family Ties remind us  that Fox, a Canadian high school dropout, had a career that catapulted him to a level of success that sometimes left him reeling. Fox talks about how he tried to continue his career after his diagnoses, devising clever ways to conceal the tremors that would overtake his left hand without warning. Guggenheim also takes us into Fox's home where we meet his wife, Tracy Pollan, and his kids. The boyish, engaging actor is now a debilitated 61-year-old man, but neither Guggenheim nor Fox asks for pity. The title has multiple meanings: It refers to Fox's tendency to speed from one project to the next, always on the run, primarily motivated by fear, he says. He also says that Parkinson's eventually allowed him to find a measure of stillness that previously eluded him. But for me, the title suggests something else, he's still here -- living as fully as he can and offering a story that's sure to inspire others.

'Malala' aims to inspire

It's not the deepest of documentaries, but He Named Me Malala benefits from a young woman's dynamic personality.

If you don't know by now, you should: Malala Yousafzai has become one of the world's most inspirational figures.

Shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for the "crime" of attending school in the Swat Valley of her home country, Pakistan, Malala -- as she's now familiarly known -- went on to win the Noble Peace Prize in 2014.

She shared the honor with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian advocate for children's rights who hasn't gotten nearly as much attention.

That's not to say that Malala isn't deserving of notice and acclaim. She's bright, articulate and an energetic advocate for the education of young women around the globe.

A capable spokesperson for her cause, Malala has written a best-selling book (I Am Malala), traveled to Africa in support of education and appeared on many TV shows. (She recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, where she did a card trick.)

Now comes He Named Me Malala, a documentary by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth).

Considering the subject, it seems almost churlish to complain about He Named Me Malala, which tells Malala's story and advances her educational agenda.

From a film standpoint, He Named Me Malala can be summed up easily: Amazing subject about an amazing young woman with a dynamic personality. Otherwise, a medium-grade documentary that's bigger on inspiration than insight.

It's possible, though, that He Named Me Malala should become compulsory viewing for American middle and high school students, kids who often take education for granted.

Using animated interludes, Guggenheim tells Malala's story, and offers views of her life in the limelight.

He also gives us glimpses into Malala's life as a young woman at home with her family in England. Malala can't return to Pakistan without putting her life in danger.

From what we see of these British-based scenes, Malala's two brothers are terrific kids. Her father seems to play a central role in her life. Her mother isn't much heard.

Dad -- Ziauddin Yousafzai -- wonders whether he may be responsible for what happened to Malala. As a committed educator, did he force her into a role that endangered her life?

Malala answers the question with an emphatic "no." He (her father) named me Malala, but he didn't make me Malala, she says.

A promotional vehicle for worthy ideas, the film would have benefited from more substance and better organization, and it easily could have withstood a bit of fleshing out when it comes to informing us about the dimension of a global problem: the way some cultures classify women as beings unworthy of an education.

But no matter how it's packaged, Malala's story retains the inspirational quality that Guggenheim surely was attempting to give it. For many, that will be enough.

Pushing the new education orthodoxy

Geoffrey Canada at work in Harlem.

Waiting for Superman, the new and much-discussed education documentary, makes a highly emotional case for the current wave of school reform. Oddly, though, the movie is at its best (which can be very good) when its commitment to storytelling subdues its more zealous aspirations. Director Davis Guggenheim, acclaimed for his work on the Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth, focuses on five kids and their parents, and the closer he stays to them, the more impressive and, yes, heartbreaking his movie can be.

Watching a young girl's dejection at not hearing her name called for admission to an acclaimed New York City charter school couldn't be more wrenching. The youngster is ill-equipped to accept the cruel outcome of a lottery, the mechanism for deciding which students will get into charter schools when the number of applicants exceeds the number of open slots.

Guggenheim tells us that his documentary was born out of discomfort. Although he previously had made a documentary about public schools, Guggenheim wound up sending his own kids to private school. He wondered about parents who didn't have his resources, but also wanted the best for their children. What could they do?

Waiting for Superman has not suffered for a lack of attention. The movie already has been the subject of countless op-ed pieces and magazine stories. It has prompted television programs, and has become a focal point for the discussion of educational issues. But make no mistake: This is advocacy filmmaking. Title cards at the end encourage viewer involvement in the battle to reform U.S. schools.

Excuse me, if I don't climb aboard the reform express -- at least not based on what I saw in Waiting for Superman, which won't tell careful readers of any newspaper with good education coverage much that they don't already know. Waiting for Superman is not a balanced movie, and it helps glorify the dynamism of a small group of educators -- Geoffrey Canada in New York and Michelle Rhee in Washington, D.C., for example. Not that either Canada or Rhee -- both of whom have had national media attention -- need more time in the spotlight.

The movie follows the reformist script in blaming teachers' unions for the lack of progress in our schools. It avidly supports the charter-school movement. It argues against tenure. It parrots the current belief in test scores as the major ingredient in educational assessment. It's mostly in line with a long list of prescriptive measures that have come to define an education reform movement embraced by the Obama administration and its Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.

I'm not equipped to refute Guggenheim's arguments, and I don't for a minute doubt the sincerity of the reformers. I also have no interest discouraging anyone from seeing Waiting for Superman; it can be a valuable experience, providing it's taken as the beginning of the discussion, not the end.

If you want to round out your knowledge about education reform, you may want to check out a few of the following links, and, no, I'm not suggesting that there's anything comprehensive about the articles I'm referencing. I offer them only to demonstrate that there's more to the story, shadings you won't find in Waiting For Superman.

I don't think it was intended, but Waiting for Superman also illustrates another point: We seem incapable of discussing any problem without taking sides: Reformers vs. unions; dedicated teachers vs. educational slugs; innovative charter schools vs. failure factories; and on and on.

At heart, the reformers blame ineffective teachers for the failure of children to learn. They also see systemic inertia as a major obstacle to change. But I wonder how long it will take for the reformist banner to fly over a new orthodoxy that's as deeply entrenched and unyielding as the old one. Perhaps this already has occurred.

And I also wonder whether -- during a time of diminishing resources -- education hasn't been asked to carry the burden of deciding who'll get society's goodies and who won't. The whole business leaves me with a question: Just where exactly is the top to which teachers and students are supposed to be racing?

Lauded Harlem Schools Have Their Own Problems, New York Times, Oct. 12, 2010

D.C. School Chief's Rhee's next move probably toward the door. Washington Post, September 17, 2010. (Rhee has since resigned.)

Despite push, success at charter schools is mixed. New York Times, May 1, 2010.

Grading Waiting for Superman, The Nation, Oct. 11, 2010

Stop Trashing Teachers, by Diane Ravitch, The Daily Beast.

Waiting for Superman Won't Fly With Some Audiences, NBC News, Sept. 27, 2010.