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Shortbus Reviews

What makes Shortbus unusual for an American movie is that it isn't frightened of sex, it doesn't reduce the act to insensitive frat boy gyrations, and it doesn't employ it as a bludgeoning weapon.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 15, 2023

It’s a disarmingly sweet movie about dysfunctionality and connection.

Full Review | Feb 11, 2022

the film is just as bold and startling as when it first came out maybe more so, because we have become more puritanical when it comes to depicting sexual situations onscreen, even in indie films.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Feb 7, 2022

An exuberant, audacious and deeply poignant film that crosses lines and shatters barriers with exhilaratingly untrammeled glee.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jun 6, 2019

Shortbus could stand to lose 30 minutes off its flabbily melancholic denouement.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2018

Those with small bus issues, cast aside your inadequacies and embrace the juicy pumping heart of this oddly sweet film.

Full Review | Aug 23, 2017

In Mitchell's casting-a roster of unknowns results in uneven performances that border on bad sometimes, yet he manages to keep it all on track.

Full Review | Jul 11, 2016

This isn't an exploit into pornographic ideals, but a movie with genuine ideas that are completely freed from political correctness.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 11, 2013

Genuinely enlivening

Full Review | Aug 28, 2009

Director John Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and The Angry Inch") flaunts cinematic tradition with a raucous sex comedy filled with truly shocking sex acts that underscore his vision of New York as a playground of debauchery.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 24, 2009

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 20, 2008

Shortbus is not, above all, 'dirty.' What it is, in fact, is a nice movie, one of the nicest to come down the pike since March of the Penguins.

Full Review | Mar 4, 2008

"Shortbus" flips through varying moods with overall success, fleshing out the characters who show flesh.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jul 23, 2007

There may be a variety of erotic practices on parade here, but the film leaves viewers with few real insights into either human nature or sexuality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 2, 2007

Incredibly sexy without being titilating, this is a very well crafted flick that deserves a bigger audience than it will inevitably receive.

Full Review | Original Score: A- | Jun 21, 2007

Fetishists are people, too!

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Mar 31, 2007

The characters' lack of any real substance--it's really only all about attitude--make one gradually lose interest until the next in flagrante delicto moment.

Full Review | Mar 1, 2007

a project that has brains as well as bravado. It's also very funny, which helps to diffuse much of the nervousness that its graphic sex scenes might inspire in viewers. ...an imaginative, involving and ultimately touching story.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 22, 2007

Bajo la piel de una pel%uFFFDcula sexualmente muy expl%uFFFDcita hay un delicado y sensible estudio de personajes, sus relaciones, sus frustraciones, y una irreverente y fresca mirada a la Nueva York pos-11 de setiembre.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 13, 2007

Full Review | Original Score: 5/6 | Feb 3, 2007

Suggestions

Review: shortbus.

Though sexy and sweet-hearted, the film is, finally, a trifle—a work-in-progress like the story’s characters.

The tour de force of Shortbus is a scene during which three cute gay boys sing the national anthem to—and into —each other’s bits and pieces. This inventive scenario is emblematic of the simultaneous charm, sexiness, and dysfunction of John Cameron Mitchell’s long-gestating follow-up to Hedwig and the Angry Inch . The film’s explicit sex scenes are intimate and casually choreographed—reflective, Mitchell might say, of how his audience gets their groove on in real life—except the witty banter and political commentary that speciously blows into the story at intermittent moments isn’t so unforced.

Shortbus works hard to suggest that New York City, post-9/11, has become a small place after all (and, given that just about everyone—including this site’s editors—seems to know or has been macked on by one of its stars, Mitchell may be right). There’s a sense here that if the film were stripped of its sex scenes, its Manhattan locale was swapped for a Jersey ‘burb, and the songs of the Shortbus salon’s drag performers were replaced with Frou Frou and Coldplay anthems we might be watching Zach Braff’s Garden State all over again. But while Mitchell’s insular characters are prone, like Care Bears, to twee musings (“I felt I was shooting creative energy into the world and that there was no war,” someone says), the director isn’t so full of shit as to color-coordinate their clothes with the wallpaper in their rooms.

Mitchell uses a dubious but vividly aestheticized tableau of New York City to sweep in and out of the lives of characters whose problems are so weakly articulated they that hardly inspire sympathy: Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), a sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm; James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (PJ DeBoy), boyfriends looking to bring a third man into their relationship; and Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a dominatrix whose real name is the film’s great comic-tragic revelation. At Shortbus, amid drag artists, musicians, and copulating masses, the two Jamies will find Ceth (Jay Brannan) to play with, Sofia will give someone else an orgasm in an elaborate scenario too twisted to spoil, and a former queer mayor of New York City (a stand-in, natch, for Ed Koch) bemoans how little he did to battle the AIDS crisis during the ’80s.

Mitchell sets the forced pathos of his characters against a backdrop of post-Giuliani New York City dry-heaving from its own worries (note the frequent blackouts), but Mitchell understands sex (at least the boy-on-boy variety)—what ignites it, redirects its focus, and stops it cold—more than he does his party-happening people, whose backstories resonate as meekly as the director’s fuzzy post-9/11 philosophizing. Which is perhaps to say that as sexy and sweet-hearted as Shortbus is, in the end it’s a trifle—a work in progress like its characters.

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Time Out says

James knows he is surrounded by love but, being depressive, struggles to feel it. ‘I see it all around me but it stops at my skin. I can never let it in.’ The wages of impenetrability – sexual, social, personal, political – are at the crux of ‘Shortbus’, John Cameron Mitchell’s heartfelt, hilarious paean to permeability played in the key of sex. Oozing warmth, colour and song as well as bodily fluids, the film is structured around seven young New Yorkers orbiting the titular ‘salon for the gifted and challenged’, a kind of super-tolerant pansexual orgy with elements of performance art and group therapy thrown in. James and his boyfriend Jamie (real-life couple Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy) have reached an impasse in their relationship, to the consternation of their unofficial fan club Ceth (Jay Brannan) and Caleb (Peter Stickles). Meanwhile, their couples counsellor Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), who has never had an orgasm, is getting narked with feckless hubbie Rob (Raphael Barker) and escort Severin (Lindsay Beamish) finds her severe façade cracking.

Long-gestating and semi-improvised, ‘Shortbus’ is already famous for its unsimulated sex scenes, and it begins with several bangs: self-sucking, flagellation and cunnilingus on a Steinway all pulse their way to climax, immediately followed by a wash of simultaneous melancholy. The sex act is not enough – something Mitchell evidently understands. Few arthouse directors have put real sex to such narratively constructive and credibly, humorously human use – always indicative of character, it is seldom erotic, much less titillating – but it is only one of the film’s techniques. As in Mitchell’s debut, ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, much use is made of music (including aching, marvellous songs by Scott Matthews, Yo La Tengo and others) and colourful, figurative animation: in this case a rough-hewn CGI cityscape prone to emblematic blackouts.

It’s also unassumingly political. Where ‘Hedwig’ focused on bereft halves in the wake of the Cold War, ‘Shortbus’ offers a post-9/11 world of asymmetrical anxiety amid a dearth of meaning, from the question ruefully posed to the Statue of Liberty at the film’s opening – ‘Is you is or is you ain’t my baby?’ – to the observation of salon ‘hostess’ Justin Bond (aka the fabulous Kiki of cabaret act Kiki & Herb, playing himself) that ‘9/11 is the only real thing that’s ever happened’ to America’s youth. Amid such uncertainty, the film also pays attention to the new boom in autoarchiving: James, Caleb and Severin all find some solace in compulsive photography; the feature ‘Tarnation’ grew out of an audition tape Jonathan Caouette sent to Mitchell. ‘Voyeurism,’ Bond notes, ‘is participation.’

Some of the identity politics might come off – deliberately? – as a touch gauche (‘Hi,’ one girl smiles, ‘my name’s Bitch’). But how not to love a film that features an ‘orgasmic superhero’ called Shabbas Goy, a guy having ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ sung up his ass and a drag queen with a megaphone?

Release Details

Release date: Friday 1 December 2006
Duration: 101 mins

Cast and crew

Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Jay Brannan
Justin Bond
Lindsay Beamish
Scott Matthew
Raphael Barker
Paul Dawson
Jasper James
Sook-Yin Lee
Paul Stovall

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Shortbus in 2006—and in 2022

By David Hudson

Jan 27, 2022

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C ould Shortbus (2006) be made today? And even if so, would audiences stand for it? These are the questions John Cameron Mitchell is being asked over and again as his second feature returns to theaters in a new 4K restoration. An ensemble piece developed over a period of nearly three years of workshopping and improvisation—Mitchell cites Mike Leigh, John Cassavetes, and Robert Altman as inspirational models— Shortbus takes its name from a weekly gathering of New Yorkers—including a gay couple thinking about opening up their relationship, a sex therapist who has never experienced an orgasm, and an emotionally disconnected dominatrix—who party, drink, nibble, and have lots and lots of sex.

Early in the spring of 2003, five years before his first book, Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood, was published, Mark Harris set out to write a book about the making of Shortbus. He tells the story of the aborted project at Vulture, and not only is his piece the one to read about this particular film, it’s also simply one of the best on just about anything that you’re going to come across for a while. Harris vividly sketches the hopefuls arriving in New York for a series of nerve-wracking and ultimately exhausting auditions as well as Mitchell’s frustration when financing falls through—and the camaraderie of the cast that stands by him and the project to the end.

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Shortbus Review

01 Dec 2006

101 minutes

Hedwig And The Angry Inch writer-director John Cameron Mitchell opts for another cheerful celebration of polysexuality in this drama set in contemporary New York. Casting likeable unknowns prepared — nay, eager — to have sex and masturbate on camera, he depicts an urban subculture in which guilt-free, multi-partner sex frequently equals emotional liberation — and a welcome distraction from America’s post-9/11 political climate. One elderly gay orgy spectator even turns out to be a former mayor of New York. “It’s like the ’60s, only with less hope,” explains the orgy’s mistress of ceremonies (drag queen Justin Bond) as he leads Sofia around his apartment full of writhing bodies. The politics are soon laid aside for comedy: “For a minute there, I thought that man didn’t have an arm,” he comments.

While it’s very explicit, Shortbus is more than just a cheap thrill. Despite being first-timers or bit-part actors, most of the cast bring authenticity to their characters (and their sex scenes — all the orgasms are real). Sex parties here are not as dark, dangerous and thrilling as Hollywood might have them: they’re bright and fun. The depiction of group sex as a solution for everything is both simplistic and idealistic, however, and some subplots are underdeveloped. Sofia’s relationship with her husband isn’t fully explored; it’s implied that everything will be magically resolved when she finally achieves an orgasm. Some of the improvised conversations about sexual liberation feel pointed, as does the character of Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a dominatrix with intimacy issues.

There’s still plenty of enjoyable humour, though, and an unexpected poignancy running through the film’s later scenes involving stand-out actors Paul Dawson and Jay Brannan. Like Romance and Intimacy, this opens up the debate about the line between pornography and drama: explicit sex features heavily, but isn’t eroticised. But unlike most of European cinema’s hardcore explorations, Shortbus does it with a big fat smile on its face — and a dig at the experimental arthouse scene (“I find the more boring [the films] are, the more intelligent people think they are for watching them,” says the Shortbus mistress of his in-house film festival). And where else could you see a gay threesome during which, bored with the silence, they start humming the American national anthem where the sun doesn’t shine?

Cast & crew
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Metacritic reviews

80 L.A. Weekly Scott Foundas L.A. Weekly Scott Foundas The boldest provocation of Mitchell’s sweet, tender and gently funny film may be its exuberant celebration of community and togetherness at a cultural moment rife with fatalism and disconnect.
75 TV Guide Magazine Maitland McDonagh TV Guide Magazine Maitland McDonagh A darkly comic trifle that follows in the footsteps of such films as Catherine Breillat's "Romance" (2000), "The Brown Bunny" (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's "9 Songs" (2004) by incorporating hard-core sex into a nonpornographic narrative.
75 Premiere Glenn Kenny Premiere Glenn Kenny Mitchell's energy and occasional ingenuity make Shortbus an engaging viewing experience, provided you can stomach it.
75 New York Post Lou Lumenick New York Post Lou Lumenick Mitchell's adventurous, big- hearted, pansexual mosaic of New Yorkers looking for love and orgasms (not necessarily in that order), is a rare example of a nonporn film that doesn't exploit graphic sex as a gimmick.
70 Village Voice Village Voice There's something refreshingly frisky and celebratory about Shortbus that offsets its flaws. It's a triple-X midnight movie with a heart of squarest gold.
70 The New York Times Manohla Dargis The New York Times Manohla Dargis An ode to the joy and sweet release of sex, the film manages to be a sincere, modest political venture that finds humor where you might least expect it, notably in a ménage à trois featuring a cheeky rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner."
60 Variety Todd McCarthy Variety Todd McCarthy Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested.
58 Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum Shortbus is chipper, it's fresh, it emits a distinct musk of controversy. I'll take the longbus.
50 The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt The film lacks the depth and discipline of Mitchell's first film venture, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," which makes Shortbus a real disappointment.
50 ReelViews James Berardinelli ReelViews James Berardinelli Although Shortbus doesn't work as porn (and I don't believe it's intended to), it also doesn't work as a serious drama. The storyline is juvenile and the characters remain poorly developed and incomplete.
See all 27 reviews on Metacritic.com
See all external reviews for Shortbus

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Directed by John Cameron Mitchell

Open Your Mind. And Everything Else.

A group of New Yorkers caught up in their romantic/sexual milieu converge at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality, and loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. Here, gay couple Jamie and James meet Ceth, a young ex-model and aspiring singer.

Paul Dawson Lindsay Beamish Adam Hardman Sook-Yin Lee Raphael Barker Peter Stickles PJ DeBoy David Pittu Jeff Whitty Mickey Cottrell Mary Beth Peil Shanti Carson Jan Hilmer Justin Vivian Bond Bradford Scobie Murray Hill Ethan Eunson-Conn Stephen Kent Jusick Jonathan Caouette Jay Brannan Derek Jackson Rachel Friedman Paul Oakley Stovall Reg Vermue Ray Rivas Alan Mandell Bitch Lex Vaughn Rachael C. Smith Show All… Yolonda Ross Jocelyn Samson Daniel Sea Tanya Gagné Adrienne Truscott Dirty Martini Timmy Young The World Famous *BoB* Eric Gilliland Jasper James Grace Kahng Miriam Shor Justin Hagan Harry Slattery Ralph Gunderman Tristan Taormino John Cameron Mitchell Scott Matthew

Director Director

John Cameron Mitchell

Producers Producers

Howard Gertler Tim Perell Pamela Hirsch John Cameron Mitchell

Writer Writer

Editor editor.

Brian A. Kates

Cinematography Cinematography

Frankie DeMarco

Composer Composer

Costume design costume design.

Kurt Swanson Bart Mueller

Fortissimo Films Process Productions Q Television Oscilloscope

Netherlands USA

Releases by Date

20 may 2006, theatrical limited, 20 oct 2021, 04 oct 2006, 18 oct 2006, 08 nov 2006, 01 dec 2006, 09 feb 2007, 05 oct 2006, 04 apr 2039, 07 feb 2007, releases by country.

Physical R18+ DVD
Premiere Cannes International Film Festival
Theatrical 16 Visa CNC 116296
Theatrical 18

Switzerland

Theatrical NR
Theatrical limited NewFest (15th Anniversary 4K Restoration Screening)

101 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Cole ★★★★★ 4

There's a moment at the end of Shortbus where Severin, the disaffected dominatrix who's drifted in and out of the movies various stories, screams. It's not an angry scream, or one of sadness, or even desperation. Nor is it a grand moment. It's a tiny, little, insignificant scream of full throated joy, low in the mix, and lasting for two seconds at most. And it's one of the most powerful moments I have ever seen in art.

You all know Shortbus. It's a film with a certain amount of notoriety around it. It's the porno that John Cameron Mitchell made after Hedwig. It's a wall to wall celebration of sex of all kinds.

Except it isn't.

Oh, sure, there's sex,…

Review by Kat Moir ★★★★ 5

I love this movie. It provides a completely new stance on Andy Worhol's quote "Sex is the biggest nothing of all time."

But I'm so glad I didn't watch it with my mum.

Review by Hari Nef

new queer raw-tops mid-aughts new york twee in a movie i will comfort watch again again and probably again. the girls and i paid $14 each to the ifc to get dragged bald by a gay-ass downtown comedy of manners with real sex and frequently perfect dialogue. the credits were a movie unto themselves

Review by Vinny Simms ★★★★½ 3

“Eat my twat, Doctor Donut!”

bruh how in the fuck did this movie where a guy tries to suck his own dick in the first five minutes end up making me cry

Review by Jack Robinson👽 ★★★ 2

There is enough room in this world for 2 Jennifer Aniston’s

Review by Grayson ★★★ 1

OH SAY CAN YOU SEE BY THE DAWNS EARLY LIGHT OH SAY DOES THAT STAR SPANGLED BANNER YET WAAAAAAVE FOR THE LAAAAND OF THE FREEEEE AND THE HOOOME OF THE BRAAAAAVE

Review by Simone ★★★★½ 5

Film #81 of The December Project

I watched this without reading the description, so yeah... you can imagine my surprise at the explicit un-simulated sex scenes which begin about 2 minutes into the movie. At first I thought this was just going to be another pretentious, overachieving porno, but it's SO much more. It's kind of like the comedic film version of a brilliant one season TV show called Tell Me You Love Me . In case you haven't seen it, coming from me, that's a huge compliment.

Shortbus is about a bunch of lost and confused individuals and couples in New York City who are searching for answers to their questions about sex and relationships. They all converge on an…

Review by pwatersnh ★★★ 3

Great movie to see with a Christian Youth Group

Review by 𝙺𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚎 🐞 ★★★½

Starts with a dude literally ejaculating into his own mouth, and is more heartfelt than half the shit Disney produces.

Review by Liz ★★★★ 1

You know it's 2006 when an indie marching band shows up at the orgy -- has aged surprisingly well (apart from the whole 'sympathy for Ed Koch' scene)!

Review by june alexandra 4

gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay. gay.…

Review by Rocky Ibarra ★★★

This review may contain spoilers .

John Cameron Mitchell’s second feature in 2006 Shortbus sought to console, open up but most importantly liberate, not to shove unsimulated sex scenes in the viewer’s face though if I’m being honest, after some orgy shots I was done with them. This is not a conventional erotica because no sex scene is sexy nor actors pretty. Mitchell had pure intentions of presenting people in search of meaning, happiness and understanding in a place where they are forced to keep them shut. I didn’t love the movie because the message was explored maybe a bit more scattered than I wanted until it kind of falls flat in its face when things are happening all over again.…

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Review: 'Shortbus'

Sook-Yin Lee plays a sex therapist -- oh I mean couples counselor -- who's never had an orgasm in "Shortbus," playing tonight as part of FilmOut's monthly screening series.

FilmOut Monthly Screening Picks A Winner

John Cameron Mitchell gained fame for bringing his drag queen stage hit "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"to the big screen. Now he presents us with a group of New Yorkers trying to figure out the connection, if any, between sex and love in "Shortbus" (screening January 18 at the Birch North Park Theater as part of FilmOut's monthly screening program).

Living in the new millennium, we like to think that we've come a long way from things like the restrictive Hays Code that dictated what Hollywood could and couldn't show. In some ways we have come a long way, and films are able to deal with far more than they could in the past. Yet when it comes to sex, there are still taboos. We may not have a Hays Code regulating what's on screen but studios and filmmakers engage in plenty of self-censorship. Explicit sex in independent films is more rare now than it was in seventies moviemaking, and it's practically nonexistent in mainstream films (the recent "Shame" is the exception that proves the rule). For example, it's difficult to imagine a major studio making "Last Tango in Paris" now.

Then along came John Cameron Mitchell and his sexually explicit film "Shortbus" (2006). Variety called it, "The most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry." But what's actually surprising about "Shortbus" is not so much the sex and the fact that the cast engaged in real sex, but rather that it's a funny film about sex and people enjoying sex. If you think about sexually explicit films such as "Last Tango in Paris or the more recent "Shame," they are serious dark works in which sexual experimentation rarely leads to happiness.

Having worked at a TV station where I had to censor theatrical films for air, I can attest to the fact that one of the things that management felt was most objectionable was people enjoying sex. Rapes scenes could often be left in a movie but never a woman enjoying an orgasm -- even if you saw nothing and only heard the sounds of her pleasure. That being said, I would like to commend Mitchell for making a warm, funny and very human film about people who don't just want sex but rather want to enjoy sex with someone they love. What a concept!

"Shortbus" refers to an underground salon where one can find art, music, politics and a wide array of sexual activity. It's also where a group of native and adopted New Yorkers converges on a weekly basis. It's ' a place where some can explore their sexual curiosities and try to work out their problems.

In an Associated Press interview, Mitchell has stated that he does not view his film as "pornographic -- it's not a film that's meant to arouse. We try to de-eroticize the sex to see what kind of emotions and ideas are left over when the haze of eroticism is waved away. This film isn't a one-night stand, it's a relationship, and by the end if you're thinking only about the sex, then you have a problem.

But when the film starts the characters are not just thinking about sex, they're engaging in it. The film opens with James (a sweetly sad Paul Dawson) videotaping himself in the bathtub and then engaging in a limber display of self-stimulation that would impress "Clerks'" Randall and Dante. His home video would seem narcissistic and pornographic except for the fact that James seems so deeply sad. His partner Jamie (P.J. DeBoy), however, is his polar opposite. Jamie is hyper, extroverted, and just wants to love everybody. After 5 years of a monogamous relationship, James suggests that they experiment with others and this leads to a hilarious group sex scene. Their experimentation also leads them to a sex therapist -- oh, I mean a couples counselor -- named Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee who practically steals the film with her delightfully conflicted performance). She is a woman we have seen earlier in the film engaging in wild sex with her husband, trying various positions and moving through every room in the house. But we discover that she's never had an orgasm and has been faking them for years so as not to upset her husband. So the fact that she's a sex therapist -- oh I mean couples counselor -- proves to be deliciously ironic.

Justin Bond playing himself in "Shortbus."

Rounding out the cast of characters is a handful of other characters exploring their sexuality in some way. There's a dominatrix (Lindsay Beamish) who would love to find someone to carry on an intelligent conversation with or at the very least a man or a woman who can give her an orgasm, something she's only been able to give herself. There's Ceth (Jay Brannan) who joins the two Jameses for sex and a relationship. There are also peripheral but important characters like Justin Bond (playing himself) who runs Shortbus, and a voyeuristic young man (Peter Stickles) whose motives are not what you might expect.

For his first film, "Hedwig and the Angry Inch, John Cameron Mitchell placed himself at center stage and savored the spotlight. For "Shortbus," Mitchell stays behind the camera and generously turns the focus on an ensemble of young actors. Mitchell collaborated with his cast to create the script, essentially allowing each performer to craft a character and then shape his or her fate. What they come up with is a group of flawed, damaged, funny, and very appealing characters who win us over almost immediately. The film works best through humor, finding insights in a highly entertaining manner. Mitchell is less adept at the more dramatic turns in the story but nothing ever goes seriously wrong in this smartly crafted ensemble work.

 "Shortbus" (unrated but no one under 17 will be allowed because of the sexually explicit material) is a rare film in that it explores the relationship between sex and love, and does so with humor and compassion. The graphic sex will offend some, but that's as it should be. "Shortbus" wants to push some buttons and defy conventions, and it can't do that without outraging someone. But if you look past the sex, you'll find a very sweet tale of people trying to connect in meaningful ways.

Companion viewing: "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," "Henry and June" (the first film to receive the NC-17 rating), "Last Tango in Paris"

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John Cameron Mitchell’s Erotic Romp ‘Shortbus’ Was the First and Last of Its Kind

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As a teenager encountering “Shortbus” for the first time, I felt a shimmering world of likeminded individuals suddenly open up in front of me. It was a bit like Dorothy entering Technicolor for the first time, only the Tin Man was a goth dominatrix and the Cowardly Lion was a pre-orgasmic sex therapist. Sure, movies had moved me before, but never in such a warm, communal way. Here was a group of artists, bohemians, and queer people who were funny, depressed, sexually liberated in some ways and stunted in others.

Like any queer, alternative, or outsider kid at the time, I knew and loved John Cameron Mitchell from “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” but “Shortbus” felt like something completely different. His films are always hilarious, provocative, and deeply felt, but in “Shortbus” he weaves multiple compelling narratives (not an easy feat) into a gorgeous revery of a bohemian New York that was already slipping away. Set in the early aughts, the film has a timeless nostalgia about it, like a time capsule of some bygone era of sexual freedom that maybe everyone feels they just barely missed out on.

Yes, “Shortbus” is unique because it features real sex — some of the most playful, acrobatic, and creative sex you’ll ever witness — but it’s also incredibly moving. Set during the blackout of 2003, the film follows a group of emotionally stunted characters navigating sex and desire in a post-9/11, Bush-addled New York. There’s a sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm; a gay man obsessively filming himself as an artful suicide note; and a disaffected dominatrix.

Throughout the years that “Shortbus” was unavailable (unless you had the foresight to buy the DVD), it took on magical properties in my mind. Images of a three-way blowjob, the vegan orgy, and the self-fellatio lingered in my mind, and I forgot how affecting the story is. After years out of print, Oscilloscope has overseen a beautiful 4k restoration of the film, making it available for the first time since its 2006 release.

IndieWire recently spoke to John Cameron Mitchell about his second feature film over a video call from his new home in New Orleans, where he was relaxing after filming in Brisbane for “Joe Vs Carole,” in which he plays “Tiger King” legend Joe Exotic. Naturally, he did not hold back about the state of sex onscreen, queer identity politics, and the current plight of indie filmmakers. That conversation has been condensed and edited below.

INDIEWIRE: How has the response been from audiences seeing “Shortbus” for the first time?

JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL: It was really fun to see it with a crowd for the first time in years, and to hear those laughs still working, and the young people going, “I didn’t know sex could be like that. I’m so used to Grindr,” which I kind of invented in the film.

I know! That’s so crazy!

I should have been able to make some money, but I never think of that.

You’re like a prophet.

I’m a futurist. I’m a commercial futurist. I think Yenta would’ve been a lot cuter than Grindr.

I always remembered loving the film for the sex and the comedy, and then when I saw it again recently, I was just so moved. I had sort of forgotten how incredibly moving it is.

Aw. I think it is, in retrospect, too. We’re also mourning a certain kind of… It’s not just COVID, but digital culture has worked to stamp out getting in the same room a mix of people, not just your own gender identity or your own political affiliation, but just a bunch of people who are quite different coming to a regular place that’s not a bar. But it honors art, music, food, sex in the same way. The salon, to me, is a perfect model of civilization. It’s where surprise can happen, but also you feel safe. And the blackout, were you in New York for the blackout?

It was the most beautiful moment in New York. The cops let you drink and build bonfires, and people were so kind to each other. There was no fighting, no looting. We thought it was terrorists. When it wasn’t, we were happy to be alive. So that feeling is what moved me most, watching it last night. When the marching band comes, I’m like, “Oh, where is our marching band again?”

Shortbus was a real party, right?

It was a dance party that I did with friends. It sprang from Stephen Kent Jusick, who used to run the MIX festival [New York’s now-shuttered underground queer experimental film festival].

That makes sense. It felt just like MIX to me, I thought you were parodying it.

Yeah, that was definitely… Stephen Kent Jusick was the inspiration for the salon. He had one called Cinesalon where he’d show 60mm films. There’d be vegan food and then sex in his apartment. And it was this queer, radical, fairy-ish vibe that was new to me. After “Hedwig,” I really jumped into it. And many of the people from that scene are in the film, combined with some nightlife people. There was burlesque going on. You see Murray Hill and Dirty Martini and the World Famous *BOB* and the people who were ascendant in that scene.

It feels nostalgic, but not necessarily nostalgic for the early 2000s, because you were going for your own kind of nostalgia, right? So it feels very timeless.

I hope that “Shortbus” and “Hedwig” never feel like period pieces. Even the way they’re shot, I want not to be able to go, “Oh, that looks very early ’80s or late 2000s.” I mean, I’m a creature of the ’70s, for sure, but…I like the timeless feeling about it, because the bohemians of every age had things in common. I feel like sometimes the counterculture of today is more sexphobic than it used to be.

Let’s have some pleasure, and that’s why Sook-Yin Lee’s character of Sofia is so moving to me. She’s a hip, woke person, therapist, but there’s this frozen interior. She doesn’t want to simplify it, but in that crazy flotation tank scene with the dominatrix, you start to see, okay, the male gaze has frozen her to her own self and it might take the gay males to come to the rescue.

The male gays.

They’re like, “Come to the Shortbus.” And Justin Vivian Bond is the guide, is the Virgil to her Dante, and here’s the circles of pleasure, and jump on in. Sofia’s every young person today, as well. I wonder if I could make “Shortbus” today. I think financing and distribution would be very difficult. Because sex has disappeared from film and television. Nudity’s almost gone now. And online porn has triumphed. They own it. They own sex now, and they dice it and slice it so they can sell it, and they make you decide whether you’re a top or bottom when you’re ten years old. …Capitalism won.

Do you think porn owns depictions of sex?

Yes. I’m not saying they should or, in reality, do, but in terms of sex being presented on film, mainstream or even independent film has foresworn it. They’ve given it up, because it’s too scary. There’s too many people saying someone’s being exploited and consent-based issues in intimacy. Imagine an intimacy counselor on the “Shortbus” set. Imagine…a “Shortbus” intimacy counselor would be like, “May he put his arm inside you now? Is that okay?”

How did you handle that?

From the beginning, I said, “Guys, I want to go places that film hasn’t gone…in a way that I like.” Certainly, a lot of films had used sex, but they were pretty grim, and I wanted something more fun and funny, but still emotionally deep. And so I said, “I never want you to do anything you don’t want to do, but I do want you to challenge yourselves so we can challenge the audience.”

“Shortbus” isn’t about sex. It uses sex as a medium, as a delivery system for ideas and characters and emotions, just like “Hedwig” uses music. Sex is our music in “Shortbus.” We really only did one sexual rehearsal. I just went with what they wanted to do. And they preferred to just wait until we shot it. Sook-Yin said, “Maybe we should do a rehearsal where the people behind the camera are nude, as well.” And my DP and I and a sound person were like, “Okay.” And then when it was time to actually shoot that scene, I said, “Do you want us to be naked again?” She’s like, “No, I’ve seen it.”

So it’s funny. I just adapted to what they needed. And ultimately, everyone felt great. We never had any complaints.

I love the character of Sofia, and I know many cis women can relate to her dilemma. There’s a whole discussion now around who gets to tell what stories. Do queer people own their stories?

Now it’s like write what you know. Stay in your lane. That’s not your story to tell. Is my story to tell an Asian woman who can’t have an orgasm? I would argue yes. All of those characters, I relate to. I’ve faked an orgasm. I haven’t been a woman in the world, which is a different thing, with that male gaze on me, but I understand her paralysis. It’s in imagination that empathy begins. If it’s nothing but autobiography, we are a solipsistic society that can never get together, which is what it feels like lately.

You wondered before if “Shortbus” could get made today. It feels like it was both the first and last of its kind in many ways.

I think of the beginning of the end of that golden era of ’90s and 2000s was… Which they say started with “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” in ’89 and ended maybe in 2007 with the economic collapse. “Shortbus” came out in 2006, and we had this incredible, lavish opening at Cannes with a huge concert on the beach and stars showing up, and then the next year it was austerity, and the films were fewer and less expensive. Though our film was only $2 million to make. I mean, it was very cheap for a film. Yeah, I think we might have been the last couple of films that fit into that category that didn’t need to be anchored by a star.

Now, any independent film has to have stars in it, unless it’s made for half a million dollars, and then it’s your mom paying for it. But everything has to have a star in it, because that’s how you get an Oscar nomination and attention. And that can be fine, but there’s plenty of people who aren’t [making films] and need to be… But they just turned their eyes to other forms, to television, to podcast, to stand-up, to theater. And I’m happy to do that myself. I’m working on another fictional podcast series, developing a TV series that’s musical.

There’s more fluidity in those forms, you think?

Yeah. Making “Anthem: Homunculus,” which was my fictional musical podcast, felt very freeing. It was like I could work with Glenn Close and Marion Cotillard and Patti LuPone because they could do their parts in three days. And I could really write it the way I wanted.

I think there’s good music being made right now. I’m not quite seeing the narrative real counterculture right now. I see some interesting TV shows, but in terms of real… Where is the David Lynch of YouTube?

I was hoping for more like “Shortbus,” and there really is nothing like it.

No, there was a couple other films that were working with real sex around that time. A friend of mine named Travis Mathews was trying to do a serious story with real sex, Bruce LaBruce. I t did go away after the financial collapse. I’m not sure why.

Maybe the artists have to infiltrate porn.

Yeah. I mean, the only place you could see “Shortbus” for years was on PornHub.

But it was the Spanish-dubbed version. But I like that idea. It’s like periodically, when I see porn, I see someone really doing something crazy, some self-shot thing, and it’s like, “Ooh, that’s… Wow. Good editing.” Reminding you that it’s just another form.

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Full Frontal: Review of Shortbus a film by John Cameron Mitchell

Charlie Bass Oct 12, 2006

Film Review of Shortbus Directed By John Cameron Mitchell Process Media (2006) Currently playing at Sunshine Cinema and Clearview Chelsea

Combining a serious interest in the love lives of the disenfranchised with his musically fluid sense of structure and mischievous flair for provocation, Mitchell builds on the success of his debut, Hedwig and the Angry Inch , by fashioning a mini-Altman tapestry of people struggling to find happiness in their relationships. The relatively aimless narrative focuses on three couples who all come together at the titular Brooklyn sex haven, a more playful, low-key version of Warhol’s Factory with a similar level of welcomed debauchery.

Aforementioned ex-hustler James (Paul Dawson) and his sweet but dull boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy), who’ve stopped sleeping together after many years together, visit “couple’s counselor” Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), whose husband Rob (Raphael Barker) has no idea she’s never had an orgasm. Brought to Shortbus by James and Jamie, Sofia befriends Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a dominatrix and artist whose abuse of her main client, trust-fund prick Jesse (Adam Hardman), is starting to wear on her psyche. Connections are forged, with James and Jamie entering into a three-way relationship with model Ceth (Jay Brannan), while James grows increasingly more despondent. Shut off from the world, Severin starts to open up to Sofia, who even kisses Shortbus’ cross-dressing host (scene-stealing genius Justin Bond) in a vain search for sexual fulfillment.

Beyond the ample sex onscreen, there’s a real intimacy among the cast, perhaps due to Mitchell’s decision to workshop the film collectively à la Christopher Guest or Mike Leigh. Thus, despite a handful of awkward edits and strangely underdeveloped characters, the film captures a genuine tenderness that nicely complements its epic ode to tolerance (even a creepy peeping tom is embraced!). As in Hedwig , Mitchell cuts best to music and the film’s combination of real sex with the bitchiest wit since Bette Davis will surely give it a similar cult following.

In juxtaposing the pure joy of fucking with the heartbreak, miscommunication, and isolation of sexual relationships, Mitchell has made a sweetly mature and enjoyable American film about sex that deserves your hard-earned cash.

Shortbus is currently playing at Sunshine Cinema and Clearview Chelsea .

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Shortbus Reviews

64 Metascore
1 hr 42 mins
Drama, Comedy
Watchlist Where to Watch

John Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") wrote and directed this provocative and sexually graphic look at the lives of several New Yorkers who converge weekly at an underground salon devoted to art, music and carnality. Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, Raphael Barker, Lindsay Beamish.

John Cameron Mitchell's follow-up to HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH (2000) is a darkly comic trifle that follows in the footsteps of such films as Catherine Breillat's ROMANCE (2000), THE BROWN BUNNY (2003) and Michael Winterbottom's 9 SONGS (2004) by incorporating hard-core sex into a nonpornographic narrative. Depressed and secretly suicidal former hustler James (Paul Dawson) and ebullient onetime child star Jamie (P.J. DeBoy), strong candidates for the title of most adorable gay couple ever, are going through a rough patch, and James suggests that after five years of monogamy, a threesome might revitalize their relationship. The adoring Jamie isn't so sure and suggests they seek professional guidance from Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), a couples' therapist who's never had an orgasm despite an active and apparently satisfying sex life with her supportive, un- (or under-) employed husband, Rob (Raphael Barker). When her not-so-dirty little secret emerges during their session, James and Jamie introduce Sofia to Shortbus, a weekly salon devoted to conversation, movies, polymorphous public sex and general fabulosity, orchestrated by host Justin Bond, the glam half of NYC-based drag duo Kiki and Herb, playing some version of himself. (A shortbus, he explains, is the minivan that transports students who, for one reason or another, don't fit in with "normal" kids.) Sofia connects with dominatrix Severin (Lindsay Beamish), who's too emotionally drained by her day job to pursue her art or a real relationship, and they agree to a novel therapy-for-sex-tips swap. James and Jamie meet model-turned-musician Ceth (Jay Brannan), who's intrigued by the prospect of a committed three-way relationship, which is threatened by a voyeur (Peter Stickles) who sees Ceth as a threat to the "perfect couple" he's been watching from his apartment window. Though the sex is frequent, graphic and ranges from athletic auto-eroticism to a cheerful gay threesome (a rare movie acknowledgment that sex can be goofy and good), the most startling thing about the film's sex scenes may be that they're performed by people whose eyes lack the reptilian opacity common to adult-movie professionals. Mitchell is equally interested in his characters' navel-gazing, Woody Allen-esque angst and in their erotic acrobatics, and his greatest innovation may be stripping on-screen sex of its heavy symbolic freight and letting it be as silly, serious, intense or detached as the people having it.

Shortbus (United States, 2006)

With something as controversial as Shortbus , you can never get a sense of what you're in for based on word-of-mouth, especially when there's no consensus. Some think it's a masterpiece (or nearly so). Others think it's an abomination. Such a division of opinion is expected when a filmmaker crosses the daring line of combining narrative with hard-core sex scenes. Although Shortbus doesn't work as porn (and I don't believe it's intended to), it also doesn't work as a serious drama. The storyline is juvenile and the characters remain poorly developed and incomplete.

There are four protagonists, and we're introduced to them during an opening scene that features urination in a bathtub, domination, sex toys, auto-fellatio, and hard-core heterosexual action (with penetration). There are two "money shots" and lots of positions. Technology plays a big part in these scenes and others. Cameras and camcorders abound. Nearly everything in the movie is either being photographed or recorded. This is probably intended to say something about society's penchant for voyerism, although if director John Cameron Mitchell ( Hedwig and the Angry Inch ) is trying to make a more specific point, he doesn't achieve it.

Sonia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a sex therapist/couples counselor who has never achieved an orgasm. For her, Shortbus becomes the quest for one, much like in dozens of porn films. Two of her clients are Jamie and James (P J DeBoy and Paul Dawson), a gay pair who are considering opening up their five-year old relationship to give it some spice. After all, as one of them remarks, "Monogamy is for straight people." The fourth participant in these proceedings is dominatrix Severin (Linsday Beamish), who hides her real identity and loneliness behind a facade that includes whips and leather outfits. Her apartment overlooks the former World Trade Center site, which leads to the following question: When you're taking a picture at Ground Zero, do you smile?

The problem with Shortbus is that it is dramatically uninteresting and thinks it's more profound than it actually is. There are some promising moments early on, as when everyone sheds a tear of sadness after orgasming (or, in Sonia's case, not orgasming). Mitchell's big point is that sex does not necessarily equate with intimacy and one can still be lonely despite having a constant bed-partner. This isn't exactly a surprising or interesting insight, and Shortbus doesn't do much with it besides state the obvious and belabor the point.

The title refers to an offbeat sex club where anything goes. A former mayor of New York spends his time there, philosophizing and looking for a kiss or two. The club is run by "drag legend" Justin Bond. There are orgies, raunchy games of truth & dare, and all varieties of kinks and perversions. Mitchell does a good job of documenting the scene inside one of these places (where few Americans dare to tread), including showing that not all naked people are pretty to look at. However, this would be better suited to a documentary than a narrative project. The movie also contains a good portion of humor, which to an extent defuses its ponderous and self-important tone (this becomes almost unbearable during the - no pun intended - climax). Most memorable is a gay threesome that includes the most hilarious and off-color rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" ever likely to be committed to celluloid.

The acting is a cut above what it is in porn movies, but no one in Shortbus is going to receive an Oscar nomination. Sook-Yin Lee is the best of an adequate bunch - there are times when we care about her character despite the writing deficiencies. There isn't anything she doesn't do for the sake of her art. She is shown graphically masturbating, engaging in heterosexual and lesbian sex, and showing pretty much everything to the camera. The rest of the cast tends to be either stiff (again, no pun intended) or over-the-top.

Mitchell has stated that his goal with Shortbus was to make a serious film that incorporates hardcore material. To an extent, he has done that. The problem is it's not a good movie. The single unique characteristic of Shortbus and the reason it is receiving praise as being edgy and groundbreaking is because there's a lot of graphic sex and none of it is erotic or arousing. On the other hand, delete the sex scenes and you're left with a limp, arty misfire of a movie that has too little of interest to say.

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Cider House Rules, The (1999)
Citizen Kane (1941)
War Zone, The (1999)
Hole in My Heart, A (2005)
Neon Demon, The (2016)
Showgirls (1995)
(There are no more better movies of Sook-Yin Lee)
(There are no more worst movies of Sook-Yin Lee)
(There are no more better movies of Paul Dawson)
(There are no more worst movies of Paul Dawson)
(There are no more better movies of PJ DeBoy)
(There are no more worst movies of PJ DeBoy)

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They May Have Been Gone, But They’re Still Classic

By isa barnett.

Mar 10, 2007

Shortbus (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)

SHORTBUS (2006)

Starring Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, Lindsay Beamish, Peter Stickles, Justin Bond, Raphael Barker, Adam Hardman, Peter Stickles, Shanti Carson, Jan Hilmer and Murray Hill.

Screenplay by John Cameron Mitchell.

Directed by John Cameron Mitchell.

Distributed by ThinkFilm. 101 minutes. Not Rated.

Pornography is certainly a legitimate art form. However, for years, serious filmmakers have been trying – mostly unsuccessfully – to straddle the lines between art house cinema and extremely explicit sex. Recently there was Brit director Michael (24-Hour Party People, Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story) Winterbottom's musical love/sex story Nine Songs – which basically chronicled the relationship of a couple who went to concerts and had sex. Oh sure, there were some arty symbols and some hip bands, but essentially you were watching long scenes of people having sex. Which, as anyone who has ever watched pornography can attest, is very interesting for a limited time and then quickly becomes tedious after the itch has been scratched.

Now comes Shortbus from Hedwig and the Angry Inch auteur John Cameron Mitchell.

Shortbus is not really pornographic although it most certainly is very graphic. Unlike Nine Songs, the movie does not dwell on the individual sex acts. They are usually rather short, in fact, however they include some rather explicit images including penetration, hetero and gay intercourse, group sex, self-fellatio, sex toys, voyeurism, B&D, urination, orgasms – all of which made this movie a nearly impossible sale in legitimate theaters.

The irony is, though, that the shocking visuals of Shortbus are generally at the service of some surprisingly square, traditional storylines -- though granted tarted up with arty excess and flamboyant sleaziness. Still, Shortbus is really about a group of people whose desperately miserable (or at least dysfunctional) lives are only made bearable by love... though in this film love and sex can be rather interchangeable.

Most of the action revolves around a group of New York arty types who try to find love, compassion and understanding in the titular sex club – a Plato's Retreat for the new millennium where the fabulous meet with the frustrated for an anything goes (but only if you want it to...) extended orgy.

However, the film really is most interested in a couple of love stories and the tale of a couple of societal outsiders.

Some of the symbolism is a little easy and obvious. Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) is a sex therapist who has never been with another man than her husband and is completely unable to have an orgasm.

Severin (Lindsay Beamish) is a professional dominatrix who would really like to be able to relate to people on a one-on-one basis – which, given her chosen profession, must be a bit of a problem.

James (Paul Dawson) is a former gay prostitute who is inexplicably miserable in a happy, long-term relationship with a has-been sitcom star (PJ DeBoy).

They are all welcomed by the master (mistress?) of ceremonies, drag queen Justin Bond as himself, and are surrounded by a cross-section of the beautiful and not-so-beautiful people of the village (including an elderly man who claims to be a former mayor of New York.).

What follows is lots of navel-gazing, tons of arty and symbolic directing touches and sudden, in-your-face sexuality. It's an interesting ride, but most of it is not as shocking or intriguing as it wants to be. (3/07)

Dave Strohler

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‘MaXXXine’ Review: Ti West And Mia Goth’s Horror Trilogy Comes To A Satisfyingly Bloody Conclusion

By Damon Wise

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It begins in 1959 with a black-and-white home movie of a young girl dancing. “That’s my little girl,” says a fatherly voice offscreen. She’s certainly ambitious. “I’ll do whatever it takes,” she tells him cheerfully and emphatically. “I will not accept a life I do not deserve!” The girl is the young Maxine Minx ( Mia Goth ), and, though the film doesn’t expressly spell it out for a while, prior to the shocking events of X — “The Texas Porn-Shoot Massacre,” as the tabloid headlines later put it — it seems Maxine is already scarred from a straitlaced upbringing with an overbearing, ultra-religious father (the sinister Simon Prast).

This credit sequence covers a lot of ground, which is where MaXXXine differs from its predecessors. Advertising its time rather than evoking it, West’s film spells out what was going on in the mid-’80s: Serial killer Richard Ramirez (AKA The Nightstalker) was on the loose in California, and Al Gore’s wife Tipper was on a mission to clean up rock and rap music after overhearing her 11-year-old daughter listening to Prince’s sexually explicit “Darling Nikki.” Such morally uptight clean-up protestors will never be far from the action from here on in; as Bender explains, “Angry people are so easy to lead.”

The Nightstalker is uppermost on everyone’s minds, however, when the mutilated bodies of sex workers start turning up, branded with satanic symbols. Two of them are Maxine’s friends, which brings her to the attention of a couple of LA cops (the inspired and charismatic pairing of Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale ). Maxine refuses to cooperate, being more unnerved by the sleazy private eye John Labat ( Kevin Bacon ), who knows her real name and — more importantly — seems to hold the key to the real killer’s identity.

And now a public service announcement for the genre-savvy: know upfront that the trailer is something of a bum steer; Brian De Palma’s twisty erotic thrillers simply inform the mood, and you won’t get very far trying to guess who the teasingly little-seen killer is simply from their androgynous black get-up. In the same way, it’s really not an homage to Italian giallo ; with the exception of one very bloody set-piece, this isn’t a murder-mystery in the usual sense.

In fact, the reveal is really quite disappointing after the hell-for-leather lead-up of X and Pearl , both of which freely experimented with storytelling techniques and film grammar to sell the sizzle as well as the steak. Surprisingly, despite an obvious nod to the Mitchell brothers’ 1972 porno-chic breakout Behind the Green Door , West is very traditional this time round, literally romping through the Universal studio lot in a journey that will take Maxine to the Psycho house and, well… is that really the Back to the Future town square set?

These incremental moments build up, because — and this may be complete conjecture — West doesn’t seem to be that interested in wrapping up his trilogy with yet another pastiche horror movie. Sometimes clumsily but more often not, MaXXXine has things to say about the objectification and humiliation of women in Hollywood, as actors and directors, and, alongside that, the belittling of horror as a genre too. As the figurehead for this, Debicki is a little on the nose with her delivery, demanding perfection while not exactly exuding passion, but it’s hard not to see where she’s coming from when she gives Maxine an on-set pep talk, insisting, “We’ll prove them all wrong together in a beautiful f*cking bloodbath.”

Title: MaXXXine Director/screenwriter: Ti West Cast: Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey , Lily Collins, with Giancarlo Esposito and Kevin Bacon Rating: R Distributor: A24 Running time: 1 hr 44 min

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‘Bad Boys: Ride or Die’ Review: Older, but Never Wiser

In their latest buddy cop movie, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are still speeding through Miami. The franchise has rarely felt so assured, relaxed and knowingly funny.

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Martin Lawrence, in a burgundy track suit, kneels on a blue car and holds a gun with one hand. Will Smith, in a black tank top and pants, runs with a gun up to the car.

By Robert Daniels

Two years after Will Smith slapped the comedian Chris Rock on the Academy Awards stage, it feels bizarre that he needs a franchise called “Bad Boys” to rekindle his star power. Smith and his co-star, Martin Lawrence, are two producers of “Bad Boys: Ride or Die,” the stylishly chaotic lark by the directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah, suggesting outsize roles as star-auteurs and the importance for this installment to be a hit. In their hands, “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” throws everything at the wall, and much of it sticks.

Though the third “Bad Boys” installment was released in early 2020, a few months before the George Floyd murder spurred Black Lives Matter protests, that film could be seen in some ways as apologizing for its Michael Bay past and its “copaganda” roots.

But this is something else — a silly buddy comedy that opens poignantly with the wedding of Mike Lowrey (Smith) and Christine (Melanie Liburd). There, Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) has a heart attack, a near-death experience that soon makes him feel invincible; Lowrey, however, is rendered vulnerable by debilitating panic attacks. It’s clear that these two hypermasculine men, still speeding through Miami in fast, slick cars, are aging.

Their friend Captain Howard (Joe Pantoliano) has been framed — after his death — in a cartel’s money laundering scheme, by corrupt government officials and the brooding mercenary James McGrath (Eric Dane). Lowrey and Burnett work to clear Captain Howard’s name, and in the process this film somehow becomes a prison-break movie, involving Lowrey’s incarcerated son, Armando (Jacob Scipio), and a revenge subplot involving Howard’s daughter Judy (Rhea Seehorn). Along the way there are nods to fan favorites, a cameo by Tiffany Haddish, and Miami gangsters hunting a wanted Lowrey and Burnett.

The lurid lighting and grandiose filmmaking mirror the extravagant plotting. A frantic shootout in a club is viciously edited. In other major set pieces, the camera, sometimes taking a first-person-shooter perspective, zips, darts and spins past falling bodies toward Smith and Lawrence, who banter playfully.

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'Green Border' is the strongest movie this critic has seen all year

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‎Shortbus (2006) directed by John Cameron Mitchell • Reviews, film
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Shortbus
Not Rated. 1h 41m. By Manohla Dargis. Oct. 4, 2006. As utopian visions go, it doesn't get much better than "Shortbus," a film in which all you need is love — and sex, lots and lots of ...
Shortbus
Rated: 2/5 Nov 30, 2006 Full Review Matt Brunson Film Frenzy What makes Shortbus unusual for an American movie is that it isn't frightened of sex, it doesn't reduce the act to insensitive frat boy ...
Shortbus
John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus explores the lives of several emotionally challenged characters as they navigate the comic and tragic intersections between love and sex in and around a modern-day underground salon. The characters converge on a weekly gathering called Shortbus: a mad nexus of art, music, politics and polysexual carnality. Set in a post-9/11, Bush-exhausted New York City ...
Shortbus
What makes Shortbus unusual for an American movie is that it isn't frightened of sex, it doesn't reduce the act to insensitive frat boy gyrations, and it doesn't employ it as a bludgeoning weapon ...
Shortbus
Shortbus is a 2006 American erotic comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell.The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in an early 2000s New York City.The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s.
BBC
Shortbus (2006) Reviewed by Stella Papamichael. Updated 23 November 2006. Contains strong real sex. Shortbus is a basement club where New Yorkers go to throw off the shackles of sexual inhibition ...
Review: Shortbus
Review: Shortbus. Though sexy and sweet-hearted, the film is, finally, a trifle—a work-in-progress like the story's characters. by Ed Gonzalez. September 8, 2006. The tour de force of Shortbus is a scene during which three cute gay boys sing the national anthem to—and into —each other's bits and pieces. This inventive scenario is ...
Shortbus 2006, directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Long-gestating and semi-improvised, 'Shortbus' is already famous for its unsimulated sex scenes, and it begins with several bangs: self-sucking, flagellation and cunnilingus on a Steinway all ...
Shortbus in 2006—and in 2022
Shortbus "veritably hums with erotic vigor and philosophical playfulness," writes Guy Lodge in the Guardian, adding that it's "a presciently liberated film with its eye on the future of sexual connection, in all its poly, nonbinary possibilities." But in 2022, we find ourselves "living through a remarkably chaste period of cinema, perhaps marked by post-MeToo caution and ...
Shortbus Review
Reviews Shortbus Review New York sex therapist Sofia (Lee) has never had an orgasm, and is introduced to the Shortbus parties, where art and orgies go hand in hand.
Shortbus (2006)
Shortbus (2006) - Movies, TV, Celebs, and more... Unquestionably the most sexually graphic American narrative feature ever made outside the realm of the porn industry, John Cameron Mitchell's ambitious attempt to merge his characters' active sexual lives with more conventional emotional content is playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power ...
‎Shortbus (2006) directed by John Cameron Mitchell • Reviews, film
Recent reviews. A group of New Yorkers caught up in their romantic/sexual milieu converge at Shortbus, an underground Brooklyn salon infamous for its blend of art, music, politics, and carnality, and loosely inspired by various underground NYC gatherings that took place in the early 2000s. Here, gay couple Jamie and James meet Ceth, a young ex ...
Review: 'Shortbus'
Review: 'Shortbus' By Beth Accomando / Arts & Culture Reporter Published January 17, 2012 at 8:42 AM PST This story was published more than 12 years ago. ... This film isn't a one-night stand, it ...
Shortbus Movie Reviews
Shortbus Critic Reviews and Ratings Powered by Rotten Tomatoes Rate Movie. Close Audience Score. The percentage of users who made a verified movie ticket purchase and rated this 3.5 stars or higher. ... Purchase one or more movie tickets to see 'Tarot' using your account on Fandango.com or the Fandango app between 6:00am PT on 4/30/24 and ...
John Cameron Mitchell's Sex Romp 'Shortbus' Could Never Get ...
Set during the blackout of 2003, the film follows a group of emotionally stunted characters navigating sex and desire in a post-9/11, Bush-addled New York. There's a sex therapist who's never ...
John Cameron Mitchell on the Complicated Legacy of ...
John Cameron Mitchell's 2006 film Shortbus — which comes back to theaters this week in a 4K restoration engineered by Oscilloscope Laboratories that commemorates the original release's 15th anniversary ... and a ban on the film in South Korea was lifted after extensive judicial review. "But we weren't big enough to really get on the ...
Full Frontal: Review of Shortbus a film by John Cameron Mitchell
Film Review of Shortbus Directed By John Cameron Mitchell Process Media (2006) Currently playing at Sunshine Cinema and Clearview Chelsea. Showgirls director Paul Verhoeven once commented that he wanted to make a mainstream narrative film that showed a penis becoming erect, since it represents perhaps the greatest taboo for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Hollywood filmmaking.
Shortbus
Shortbus Reviews. 64 Metascore. 2006. 1 hr 42 mins. Comedy. NR. Watchlist. Where to Watch. John Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch") wrote and directed this provocative and sexually ...
Shortbus
Shortbus. 2006, NR, 101 min. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. Starring Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy, Jay Brannan, Justin Bond, Lindsay Beamish, Peter Stickles, Raphael Barker. You've ...
Shortbus
The problem is it's not a good movie. The single unique characteristic of Shortbus and the reason it is receiving praise as being edgy and groundbreaking is because there's a lot of graphic sex and none of it is erotic or arousing. On the other hand, delete the sex scenes and you're left with a limp, arty misfire of a movie that has too little ...
Shortbus
Shortbus is primarily significant for the exact reason I feared the most: it proves that director John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig and the Angry Inch was an accident. That shouldn't be surprising: Hedwig was a gift-wrapped present of stylistic possibilities. Still, that style came from somewhere in the filmmaker's mind, and it's shocking - nay, it verges on insulting - that Mitchell's three ...
Shortbus (A PopEntertainment.com Movie Review)
Shortbus is not really pornographic although it most certainly is very graphic. Unlike Nine Songs, the movie does not dwell on the individual sex acts. They are usually rather short, in fact, however they include some rather explicit images including penetration, hetero and gay intercourse, group sex, self-fellatio, sex toys, voyeurism, B&D, urination, orgasms - all of which made this movie ...
Shortbus [2006] [NR]
Sexually explicit urban drama that follows the sex lives of seven New York City denizens. Among them is a dominatrix, and a sex therapist who cannot reach an orgasm. With Sook Yin Lee, Lindsay Beamish, Raphael Barker, Jay Brannan and Justin Bond. Directed by John Cameron Mitchell. [1:42]
'MaXXXine' Review: Ti West And Mia Goth's Horror ...
Ti West's decades-spanning horror trilogy, which began in the late '70s with X (2022) and then jumped back over half a century for the same year's WW1 prequel Pearl, now fast-forwards to the ...
'Maxxxine' Review: Mia Goth Fights the Hollywood Power in Ti West's
"X," the first movie in Ti West's grungy but elevated artisanal-trash horror franchise (it's been billed as a trilogy but may yet produce further installments), was an unusually effective ...
'A Sacrifice' Review: Sadie Sink and Eric Bana In a Fuzzy Thriller
'A Sacrifice' Review: Suicide Is Painless In a Fuzzy Thriller Starring Sadie Sink and Eric Bana A Berlin-based cult finds ways to lure an academic and his teen daughter in Jordan Scott's ...
'Supacell' TV Review: Netflix Raises the Bar For Superhero Shows
Rapman's Netflix series "Supacell" highlights South London, while putting a spotlight on the unique experiences of Black superheroes.
'Bad Boys: Ride or Die' Review: Older, but Never Wiser
In their latest buddy cop movie, Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are still speeding through Miami. The franchise has rarely felt so assured, relaxed and knowingly funny.
'Green Border' is the strongest movie this critic has seen all year
Agnieszka Holland's film, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, centers on a refugee family trying to escape to Western Europe and the people who try to help and stop them.

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