Shortbus (Unrated Edition)

Shortbus is the dream child of writer/director John Cameron Mitchell, who brought us the delightful film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Mr. Mitchell wanted his next film to be about sex and sexuality and he had seen foreign films where the actors actually had sex on screen as part of the film, but he had not known of any English-language ones. He wanted to make the first, and what he has come up with is a delightful essay of a small group of people's sexual problems and their attempts to remedy those problems. This is a not-rated movie and the viewer immediately finds out why. The opening shot is of the head of Lady Liberty in New York City with the soundtrack belting out the words, "Is you is or is you not my baby? The way you have been acting leaves me doubt." As the song goes on the camera sails through the windows of several people's bedrooms while they are engaged in the most intimate of moments. In the first zoom through a window the audience sees a naked semi-erect man sitting in a bath tub taking film footage of his penis. Next we zoom through the window of an S&M hooker spraying off her assortment of dildos while being questioned by her john. Then we zoom back to the first man who is now filming himself trying to perform fellatio on himself. Next we zoom through the window in an apartment where a man is performing cunnilingus on an oriental woman who is sitting naked on a grand piano and then the couple goes through a wide assortment of gymnastic contortions of sexual intimacy. Zoom into apartment #4 and you see a good looking man watching the guy in the first apartment filming his oral feat. Finally all of the scenes end with orgasmic conclusions including our john with the S&M Dominatrix Hooker shooting his load onto a Sydney Pollack-style painting where it strangely seems to fit in. At first the viewer is shocked, but isn't this really closer to real life than what is typically portrayed? It seemed refreshingly frank. It turns out that the man who was trying the acrobatic fellatio, James (Paul Dawson), has a gay lover, Jamie (P J DeBoy). His lover is very attached to him, but James is pushing away in the relationship, wanting more. James wants them to try an open relationship. The oriental lady, Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) with the acrobatic lover on the piano, is a sex therapist who has been faking her orgasms with her lover and actually in fact had never had one in her life. James and Jamie come to her for sexual relationship advice and through that relationship they find Shortbus, a large home whose owner, Justin Bond, describes the place as, "You know school busses. This is the shortbus. This is a salon for the gifted and challenged!" It features a wide variety of environments, all equally bizarre, including a sex party room. There is a cabaret room, a lesbian bar, and a very diverse group of people including the former mayor of New York. In this environment all of the principle characters introduced in the opening scenes work on their sexual problems. Sofia hooks up with the S&M Hooker, Seve (Lindsay Beamish). As the hooker said, "I will help you discover how to have an orgasm and you can teach me how to have a real human interaction with someone." James and Jamie find Seth a handsome man for a three-way romance, and the voyeur even finds a relationship fulfilled. The film ends in a carnival atmosphere where the Cabaret vocalist is singing, "We all get it in the end," to the accompaniment of a marching polka band. Did I say the environment of Shortbus is a little bizarre? However, Shortbus is a dramatic story of sexual conflicts and people trying to solve them. I heartily recommend it. Actually I was in the hospital the first time I saw the film and it got my heart going again! Perhaps it will perform miracles for you as well. Gary Kaufman

I don't know if any of you heard the hoopla that was going around about this film, or even if you heard of it at all, but here it is in a nutshell: John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) wanted to make a movie that doesn't turn sex into a dirty thing but at the same time doesn't hide sex either. The big controversy over Shortbus is the fact that it definitely does NOT hide the sex. It's all there in it's full glory with full penetration and everything...even an orgy or two. Now that that's out of the way...Shortbus is not a porn movie. It's not even one of those high class Michael Lucas porn movies that have stories in between all the sex. What it is is a story about a handful of people who meet each other and who are all broken in some way. The sex therapist who has never had an orgasm. The former hustler who thinks he's only worth what people paid for him. The dominatrix who longs to be an artist and live in a house. They all meet and revolve around each other in a search for themselves. And it's a fun movie and frank and open and it celebrates life and sex and living... I'm torn about the actual sex in the movie, however. I think the movie would've been just as effective--and much more palatable to the wide audience that it deserves--without the full on sex but at the same time the sex was part of the story and woven into it so well that you really don't think about it. You're certainly not going to be getting off to it even with the full on penetration and fellatio and rimming--including one hilarious scene where three characters are having sex and they all start singing the Star Spangled Banner...one of them singing the song into the posterior of one of the others!--and S&M, etc. Regardless of that I honestly think this was an incredible film. When it was over I felt good and I can't say that about many movies. If you're open minded and not put off by people having actual sex in a non pornographic film definitely check Shortbus out. It was an amazing film and definitely worth watching.

Was lucky enough to catch this in a tiny screening the week it opened and instantly knew I had to own this film as soon as it was available. There has never been an opening sequence shot with such frankness in main-stream film. Once you adjust to the explicit nature of this movie and realize that the film's unapologetic presentation of real people having real sex is actually a wonderful vehicle to instantly, intimately connect with these characters on all levels that are open and human, you start to settle into a beautiful movie about people just trying to integrate - to connect with something outside of their self, their work, their ideas - to find that elusive moment of equanimity. The ride has great ups and downs - plenty of moments for laughs, tears and titillation. The end of the film is also shot in incredibly beautiful simplicity (this scene thematically reminded me of the end of Hedwig - James Cameron Mitchell is so good at taking the viewer right to the precipice of change/acceptance along side the main character - impossible to see his films without taking away some personal insight). This movie reminds us all that it takes darkness to see stars and silence to hear music. The bonus materials on the DVD are great too - the "making of scenes" are a must view. I just wish they had included a segment on the animation in the film like they did on the Hedwig DVD.

un film complesso, dal tema scabroso, ma senza veli e proprio per questo interessante... molto particolare la visione a volo d'uccello sul mondo ristretto dei protagonisti, in una città che non dorme mai

J'ai enfin regardé ce film, car je suis tombé sur ce dvd en faisant quelques recherches sur amazon. Ce n'est pas si tordu que ça, c'est assez émouvant et plutôt drôle même si un peu beaucoup loufoque. Les scènes de sexe quasi-porno sont d'un réalisme et je dis bravo aux acteurs et actrices de ne pas avoir eu froid aux yeux pour oser se montrer dans leur plus simple appareil. Il est extrêmement rare de voir ce genre de film, s'adressant à un public adulte et averti. Bref, j'ai passé un très bon moment devant ce film, qui nous fait finalement interroger sur qui nous sommes, ce que nous pourrons aimer ou ce que nous aimons. Plein de portes ouvertes s'ouvrent à nous, mortels.

Ignore the bitter and ridiculous review on here about this incredible movie. Shortbus is an honest and raw movie about sexuality and love in several relationships. One is a young gay couple who decided to introduce another young man into their sexual activities, another involves a man who hires a woman to dominate him sexually and the third is a heterosexual couple with a female sex therapist who can't enjoy an orgasm. It's a very sexually explicit movie that begins with James performing self fallatio and ejaculating into his mouth, graphic sex between a sex therapist and her partner, and a young man ejaculating so forcefully that it splatters onto a Jackson Pollock painting behind his head. All the sex to me illustrated that even though sex is available and physically fulfilling (some what), there is so much lacking in all of their individual lives around love, loneliness, insecurity and regret. The love between the characters shows clearly throughout the movie and sex is an integral part of their individual needs. The anger of the sex therapist with her inability to have an orgasm spills over into her daily life. Her partner's guilt is internal, then externally expressed as his penis not being large enough to fill her desire (a common fear of many men). The depression of the main gay character James seeps into his daily existence with an uncanny feeling of loneliness that many with depression feel, beautifully portrayed with truth. His partner is filled with insecurity about their love for each other. All of this culminating in a group sex party called Shortbus . We have the voyeur who lives across from James, photographing his sex life from afar who observes through his lens what he believes is real. He confronts the 'twink' for coming between what he says is a perfect gay relationship and says what needs to be said about the incompetent sex therapist who calls her partner balding and impotent without acknowledging her own inability to enjoy her vagina and own her sexuality. James tries to kill himself in the gym pool with his voyeur saving him. The voyeurism is always afar and aloof, but understood by the voyuer as real and true. But in-between this is love for one another. All culminating in the therapist having her orgasm.

This film is a very cheerful, humorous and winning film that celebrates the diversity of human sexuality. This means that it's going to annoy some people. If you're looking for porn, you're not looking for diversity: frankly be better off buying something that appeals directly to whatever kink you have. For others it may open the mind to other possibilities, and I think it's a good watch for couples particularly. I enjoyed it very much - it's very likeable and jolly pic that encourages you to relax and enjoy yourself and put aside your prejudices about other people's behaviour. Of course there is explicit sex in it, and I feel that it's more positive than that in some of the real-sex movies we've seen recently, such as Romance and 9 Songs, which in an effort to avoid the charge of pornography seem to portray shagging as rather shabby, guilty pursuits. I liked one small relationship between an old and a young man, which is rather touching. It's worth watching the extras, particularly the orgy sequence material in which the actor playing Leah asks the director to wait a second as she really needs to cum...

El envío llegó en el día estipulado y tal como se describía. La historia es amena, no para todo tipo de público. Sexo real y muy explícito, no queda nada a la imaginación.