Cleverly put together by Davis Guggenheim, this assisted autobiography features movie clips, simulated scenes and documentary footage on an armature of director-subject interview. All credit to Michael J. Fox for exposing himself and publicizing the plight of Parkinson’s patients, and he is ever charming and captivating. I still felt something was missing, that we were just skimming the surface – of his career, of his real life, of his condition. And the many scenes of his therapy just made me wonder what help the average Parkinson’s patient, such as my friends, receive.

Hip Hooray for Sally Hawkins and Ye Merrie Olde England (or Scotland)! So much fun to watch an old-fashioned movie with plot, good guys and bad guys, real-life situations and nary an art-house pretension. Instructive too, as it was “based on a true story,” although director Stephen Frears took plenty of license, as did Shakespeare before him. Steve Coogan was a wonderful husband, the kids were remarkably pleasant and the mansplaining bad guys were more twits than villains.

In anticipation of tomorrow’s awards show I watched the five nominated Documentary Shorts and rate them as follows:

1. The Martha Mitchell Effect. The only traditional historical documentary in the field, this was a refreshing recapitulation of the time the Attorney General’s wife captured the spotlight for herself, by speaking out to the press, calling Nixon on his phone, wrong-siding the Administration on Vietnam and more famously Watergate, then being muzzled by the GOP and divorced by her husband. It was great fun to revisit this bit of history, when an ethical lapse could bring a President down.
2. The Elephant Whisperers. Gorgeous nature photography and a glimpse of a totally foreign world: an obscure, isolated elephant rehabilitation center in India with a leading man that looked, acted and sounded like an Australian aborigine.
3. Haulout. A remarkable study of an isolated Russian marine biologist spending autumn in a hut surrounded by walrus. The only explication came with the credits and it was anticlimactic: if the loss of 600 walrus out of a pack estimated at 100,000 is the worst effect of climate change, then what are we worried about?
4. How Do You Measure A Year? This rates only because it’s a cute idea: taking a video of your daughter answering questions on every birthday from 2 to 18. But really, this was more a home movie than an Oscar candidate.
5. Stranger At the Gate. Maybe the first five minutes provided a context I missed, but the story of an Afghan War veteran in Muncie, Indiana, who goes from planning to bomb the local Islamic Center to adopting the Muslim faith wasn’t terribly well made and was boring.

An acting tour de force from Andrea Riseborough, who inhabits this down-and-out but deviously charming alcoholic named Leslie. Just when you think you can’t watch her another minute, the story turns and we end up with tears in our eyes. The plot, above all the ending, doesn’t withstand much scrutiny; but you want to go along, thanks to the performance by Riseborough.