- Studio: IFC Films
- Release Date: Apr 21, 2004
- Critic Score
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100Almereyda'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.
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90Fascinating. 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.
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88Turns 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.
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80Both resonant and skillfully devious.
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80Surprisingly compelling viewing.
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80It's fun to see actors doing what they do and to see them through the eyes of a director.
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80The 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.
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80Fascinating and instructive throughout.
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75Among 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.
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75This So-Called Disaster was the father's sarcastic term for their relationship.
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75Insightful but unfocused.
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75Almereyda's fascination with creative creatures and their mysterious ways is abundantly clear. And distracting.
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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.
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70Despite 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.
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70It 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.
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70For 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.
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70Not 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.
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50The scattered insights in This So-Called Disaster aren't worth the sifting it takes to find them.