Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
76
(500) Days of Summer
49
2012
60
9
17
All About Steve
37
Amelia
53
Astro Boy
70
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
52
Blind Side
47
Box, The
61
Capitalism: A Love Story
55
Christmas Carol, A
43
Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant
66
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs
23
Couples Retreat
39
Fame
30
Final Destination, The
34
Fourth Kind, The
41
G-Force
46
Halloween II
73
Hangover, The
78
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
66
Informant!, The
69
Inglourious Basterds
58
Invention of Lying, The
47
Jennifer's Body
66
Julie & Julia
34
Law Abiding Citizen
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
67
Michael Jackson's This Is It
28
Pandorum
58
Pirate Radio
39
Planet 51
30
Saw VI
53
Shorts
33
Stepfather, The
45
Surrogates
46
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
71
Where the Wild Things Are
67
Whip It
28
Whiteout
73
Zombieland
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
58
(Untitled)
96
35 Shots of Rum
56
Adam
39
Adventures of Power
66
Afterschool
73
Amreeka
49
Antichrist
76
Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86
Beaches of Agnes, The
71
Big Fan
65
Black Dynamite
76
Bliss
26
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
44
Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81
Bright Star
76
Broken Embraces
70
Bronson
62
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
69
Cold Souls
60
Collapse
82
Cove, The
75
Crude
82
Damned United, The
53
Dare
50
Defamation
67
Departures
70
Earth Days
85
Education, An
55
Endgame
88
Fantastic Mr. Fox
31
Fix
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
xx
From Mexico with Love
28
Gentlemen Broncos
72
Good Hair
89
Goodbye Solo
63
Horse Boy, The
74
House of the Devil, The
xx
How to Seduce Difficult Women
26
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
70
It Might Get Loud
46
Killing Kasztner
43
Little Traitor, The
34
Looking for Palladin
80
Lorna's Silence
46
Love Hurts
84
Maid, The
45
Mammoth
75
Messenger, The
55
Missing Person, The
59
More Than a Game
34
Motherhood
62
My One and Only
48
New York, I Love You
66
No Impact Man
26
Oh My God
68
Paranormal Activity
68
Paris
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Red Cliff
69
September Issue, The
79
Serious Man, A
65
Skin
41
Splinterheads
42
Staten Island
50
Stoning of Soraya M., The
58
Storm
82
Sun, The
49
Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon
73
That Evening Sun
61
Trucker
49
Turning Green
83
U2 3D
45
Uncertainty
67
Visual Acoustics
32
War on Kids
67
Way We Get By, The
65
Wedding Song, The
xx
White on Rice
59
William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe
74
Woman in Berlin, A
43
Women in Trouble
69
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
This So-Called Disaster
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 18 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 0 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by: Michael Almereyda
Release Date:
Theatrical: April 21, 2004
DVD: December 14, 2004
Running Time: 87 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not Rated
Starring Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Cheech Marin, Sheila Tousey, T-Bone Burnett, Sam Shepard, and Woody Harrelson
After appearing in Michael Almereyda's film version of Hamlet (in which he played the ghost), Sam Shepard invited the filmmaker to document the staging of his most recent play, "The Late Henry Moss," when it premiered in San Francisco in the fall of 2000. The resulting documentary is a remarkable group portrait - a vivid look at masterful performers working their way through a process of creative discovery. (IFC Films)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Hamlet Happy Here and Now William Eggleston in the Real World
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Almereyda's movie is riveting for several reasons: its inside look at Shepard in action, its vivid account of how a challenging play is brought from printed page to public stage, and its glimpses of Shepard's troubled youth.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Dana Stevens
Fascinating. Anyone interested in the challenges and techniques of acting -- which is really to say, anyone interested in human behavior -- should turn off E! and head down to Mr. Almereyda's film.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Turns out to be one of the finer peeks into the creative process of staging a play. Granted, that's a tiny genre, and the film's core audience -- theater majors and the people who love them -- is narrow. The lessons, however, are big.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
It's fun to see actors doing what they do and to see them through the eyes of a director.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The film leaves the viewer with an increased sense of Shepard's exceptional being and talent--a prime playwright of his time who, if he had so chosen, could also have been one of its leading film stars.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Almereyda's fascination with creative creatures and their mysterious ways is abundantly clear. And distracting.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Among the many skills required by a documentary maker is the ability to make reticent people blossom. Michael Almereyda has done that in This So-Called Disaster with several of the film industry's most notorious iconoclasts.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
This So-Called Disaster was the father's sarcastic term for their relationship.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White
As a portrait of a collaborative artist at work, the film is an invaluable document, not to be missed by anyone with more than a passing interest in theater.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
It offers a rare opportunity to watch a world-class playwright bringing one of his own works to life; rarer still, Almereyda puts his notoriously reticent subjects so sufficiently at ease that they actually sit down and discuss their craft.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Frank Scheck
Despite the often insightful comments by the various cast members and Shepard himself -- the film doesn't dig very deeply into the artistic process of putting on a new play. But it does offer a fascinating fly-on-the-wall perspective.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
For all its high-end ambitions, This So-Called Disaster has a tabloid-TV-like appeal: We want to see if these volatile performers get on each other's nerves.
Read Full Review >Variety Scott Foundas
Not as insightful as "Topsy-Turvy" or "Vanya on 42nd Street" about the process of putting on a show, it's nonetheless a fascinating meeting of the minds -- between iconic New York indie filmmaker Michael Almereyda and laconic American cowboy and dramatist Shepard.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias
The scattered insights in This So-Called Disaster aren't worth the sifting it takes to find them.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
