In short, my only major criticism is that I think this should have been about half an hour longer. Maybe there will be an uncut version?
Longer version:
I grew up in the 80's/90's and well remember the Michael J. Fox craze. Though I was never (and still am not) someone who is very interested in celebrity culture/keeps up on what famous people are doing in their personal lives, I always felt some special affinity/affection towards Fox. Maybe because I'm also a shorter guy (5' 7") and was a shorter kid (5' 1" to 5' 5" throughout much of high school).
But this was probably mainly due to watching Family Ties as a kid and, especially, my love for BTTF which is twofold: it's a great movie for everyone, but it was huge among my pre-teen crowd (kids even trying to hitch onto cars with skateboards, and, more constructively, standing up to their "Biffs") and I vividly remember my mother going out to watch it (alone or with a friend I don't remember), coming home excited, telling me I had to come see this movie, and then we went to see it within an hour. (I never saw her so excited about a movie!).
From the first scene I loved it, and seeing it in the theater for the first time with my mom when I was 8 is one of the special memories I have of my mother who died young 12 years later of ovarian cancer. She actually died during Spin City's run and I remember she liked that show too and I sometimes watched it with her, but by that time I was more in my teen "reject grown up stuff and keep to myself" snotty phase and didn't like the show much (I've recently decided I'm going to stream it, partly to rekindle some memories of my mom and I watching it; scenes or episodes I remember).
***************
Anyway, I remember all the Michael J. Fox Parkinson's news when he made it public, and it disturbed me, but I had other things going on at the time (young adult life, mother's death still recent, etc).
Since then, I've just seen Fox pop up here and there on late night shows, some movies/tv roles (the Curb appearance was hilarious and great writing!), and etc, but I never read any of his books or anything.
So I went into this being a fairly causal fan, but still one curious about his story more than most famous people (besides philosophers and scientists of whom I've read biographies/autobiographies of). IOW I rarely watch documentaries on celebs. But my feeling of connection to Fox was strong enough to make me interested in this.
***************
Michael seems to me, as much as one can ascertain from these snipets into someone's life, a deeply decent, humane person who has many positive attributes (perhaps most striking being the buoyancy of his humor, his love of/warmth for his family, his empathy, his groundedness, his friendliness, his work ethic, his honesty, and of course his inner strength and overall unyielding determination).
And being a causal fan I of course learned a lot of new/interesting things, especially about his early life. And yes this was moving, inspiring, disturbing, often brutally honest (which I really appreciated; especially about the alcohol abuse as I went through some years of that myself)...an overall vivid view of the human condition as it manifests in both good and bad periods and events throughout a person's life.
***************
However, and this is not a complete list, I felt several things were missing or not quite fully worked out:
After 2000 there isn't much coverage of Fox's life either professionally or personally. His story hardly ended around then, and is far from over now. How, in particular, has the disease progressed and how has he struggled with it over the decades? I did seem Fox recently say in an interview(s) that he's had periods of little hope recently, that his struggle has gotten harder as he's gotten older, and that he doesn't think he'll see 80...these dark aspects weren't really even mentioned in Still.
Also, brief interviews with Fox's wife and family, and even a few good friends, how all this has affected them, what they think of his struggle/him as a person, would have been very illuminating.
Related to the "paucity of post 2000 coverage" above, I especially wanted to know what the impetus was to set up the Fox Foundation (at least beyond the broad strokes), how hard that was to do, how rewarding and helpful it's been to him and others suffering from Parkinson's (does it give him meaning and purpose to his life in addition to his acting and family?), what research its done, etc. Interviews with medical experts, "foundation builders" (the types who set up and run these things) and regular workers there would have been interesting to me.
There was some problems with continuity or linear progression: for instance, there was no mention of the end of Family Ties or why it was cancelled (I still don't know why because I never looked it up), just a kind of "ok, now Fox is doing other things like these 90's movies, of which several weren't well received", and overall the sequence of events in the movie was kind of hazy. Not jumbled together so much as not altogether real clear to those, like me, who don't really know the details of Fox's life course.
What are Fox's interests besides those that are publicly known? What does Fox like to do? That is, what does he do on an average day? Does he work at/for his Foundation fairly often or did he ever? Does he reach out to fellow Parkinson sufferers who contact him? What hobbies? Cooking? Reading? Watching TV/Movies? Writing? (at least things not for publishment as we know he writes that material, but for himself? Does he journal?). Exploring and listening to music? Travelling? We know he probably does a lot of physical therapy and that of course everyday tasks are more time consuming for him than others, and that he still does some acting projects, but he has a lot of free time to fill and all has all the resources to discover and explore the various activities/interests in life! Perhaps nothing tells you more about a person than how they spend their time, so I was just curious about this.
In any case, though this was in some aspects a personal and revealing look at parts of Fox's life, other areas remain a mystery (which he of course has a right to keep private, but I don't feel that concern is the case here so much as just plain oversight or editing down for time).
Anyway, I've gone on quite long enough and probably few have read all this (and I don't blame you!), so in sum I'll just say that the real main flaw I had with this biography was I wanted more of it! That in itself shows how much it interested me (a confessed "non-celeb culture" type of guy), and thus how much it accomplished what I feel all good creations should: be interesting. And I think the last thing Micheal wants to be is uninteresting (the "no, that's boring" quote in the trailer made that very clear). There is no worry of that!
Longer version:
I grew up in the 80's/90's and well remember the Michael J. Fox craze. Though I was never (and still am not) someone who is very interested in celebrity culture/keeps up on what famous people are doing in their personal lives, I always felt some special affinity/affection towards Fox. Maybe because I'm also a shorter guy (5' 7") and was a shorter kid (5' 1" to 5' 5" throughout much of high school).
But this was probably mainly due to watching Family Ties as a kid and, especially, my love for BTTF which is twofold: it's a great movie for everyone, but it was huge among my pre-teen crowd (kids even trying to hitch onto cars with skateboards, and, more constructively, standing up to their "Biffs") and I vividly remember my mother going out to watch it (alone or with a friend I don't remember), coming home excited, telling me I had to come see this movie, and then we went to see it within an hour. (I never saw her so excited about a movie!).
From the first scene I loved it, and seeing it in the theater for the first time with my mom when I was 8 is one of the special memories I have of my mother who died young 12 years later of ovarian cancer. She actually died during Spin City's run and I remember she liked that show too and I sometimes watched it with her, but by that time I was more in my teen "reject grown up stuff and keep to myself" snotty phase and didn't like the show much (I've recently decided I'm going to stream it, partly to rekindle some memories of my mom and I watching it; scenes or episodes I remember).
***************
Anyway, I remember all the Michael J. Fox Parkinson's news when he made it public, and it disturbed me, but I had other things going on at the time (young adult life, mother's death still recent, etc).
Since then, I've just seen Fox pop up here and there on late night shows, some movies/tv roles (the Curb appearance was hilarious and great writing!), and etc, but I never read any of his books or anything.
So I went into this being a fairly causal fan, but still one curious about his story more than most famous people (besides philosophers and scientists of whom I've read biographies/autobiographies of). IOW I rarely watch documentaries on celebs. But my feeling of connection to Fox was strong enough to make me interested in this.
***************
Michael seems to me, as much as one can ascertain from these snipets into someone's life, a deeply decent, humane person who has many positive attributes (perhaps most striking being the buoyancy of his humor, his love of/warmth for his family, his empathy, his groundedness, his friendliness, his work ethic, his honesty, and of course his inner strength and overall unyielding determination).
And being a causal fan I of course learned a lot of new/interesting things, especially about his early life. And yes this was moving, inspiring, disturbing, often brutally honest (which I really appreciated; especially about the alcohol abuse as I went through some years of that myself)...an overall vivid view of the human condition as it manifests in both good and bad periods and events throughout a person's life.
***************
However, and this is not a complete list, I felt several things were missing or not quite fully worked out:
After 2000 there isn't much coverage of Fox's life either professionally or personally. His story hardly ended around then, and is far from over now. How, in particular, has the disease progressed and how has he struggled with it over the decades? I did seem Fox recently say in an interview(s) that he's had periods of little hope recently, that his struggle has gotten harder as he's gotten older, and that he doesn't think he'll see 80...these dark aspects weren't really even mentioned in Still.
Also, brief interviews with Fox's wife and family, and even a few good friends, how all this has affected them, what they think of his struggle/him as a person, would have been very illuminating.
Related to the "paucity of post 2000 coverage" above, I especially wanted to know what the impetus was to set up the Fox Foundation (at least beyond the broad strokes), how hard that was to do, how rewarding and helpful it's been to him and others suffering from Parkinson's (does it give him meaning and purpose to his life in addition to his acting and family?), what research its done, etc. Interviews with medical experts, "foundation builders" (the types who set up and run these things) and regular workers there would have been interesting to me.
There was some problems with continuity or linear progression: for instance, there was no mention of the end of Family Ties or why it was cancelled (I still don't know why because I never looked it up), just a kind of "ok, now Fox is doing other things like these 90's movies, of which several weren't well received", and overall the sequence of events in the movie was kind of hazy. Not jumbled together so much as not altogether real clear to those, like me, who don't really know the details of Fox's life course.
What are Fox's interests besides those that are publicly known? What does Fox like to do? That is, what does he do on an average day? Does he work at/for his Foundation fairly often or did he ever? Does he reach out to fellow Parkinson sufferers who contact him? What hobbies? Cooking? Reading? Watching TV/Movies? Writing? (at least things not for publishment as we know he writes that material, but for himself? Does he journal?). Exploring and listening to music? Travelling? We know he probably does a lot of physical therapy and that of course everyday tasks are more time consuming for him than others, and that he still does some acting projects, but he has a lot of free time to fill and all has all the resources to discover and explore the various activities/interests in life! Perhaps nothing tells you more about a person than how they spend their time, so I was just curious about this.
In any case, though this was in some aspects a personal and revealing look at parts of Fox's life, other areas remain a mystery (which he of course has a right to keep private, but I don't feel that concern is the case here so much as just plain oversight or editing down for time).
Anyway, I've gone on quite long enough and probably few have read all this (and I don't blame you!), so in sum I'll just say that the real main flaw I had with this biography was I wanted more of it! That in itself shows how much it interested me (a confessed "non-celeb culture" type of guy), and thus how much it accomplished what I feel all good creations should: be interesting. And I think the last thing Micheal wants to be is uninteresting (the "no, that's boring" quote in the trailer made that very clear). There is no worry of that!