ShareThisBy BARRY PARIS
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Sexual antics and existential angst of post-9/11 twentysomething New Yorkers merge at the "Shortbus" stop in this steamiest, most sexually graphic American feature film yet made outside the porn industry.
Director John Cameron Mitchell, creator-star of the cult musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" (2001), for better or worse fulfills the age-old filmmaker's dream of integrating hard-core stuff into a "mainstream" dramatic picture _ real people having real sex in a plethora of creative couplings, while also having real emotional relationships.
It starts off brilliantly, with the niftiest title-sequence intro to New York City since "West Side Story," followed by the heavy-breathing intro of our main characters: ex-hustler James (Paul Dawson), his hunky but dull boyfriend Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and sex therapist Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee).
Mitchell has said he wanted to make a film in which sex wasn't negative, "a small act of resistance against Bush and the America we live in."
Okaaay. Well, the sex here is more playfully naughty than wildly erotic or overtly political _ except for the film's most outrageously funny scene. It involves a rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" worthy of banning by constitutional amendment or of renewing your ACLU membership, depending on your patriotic position.
"Shortbus" nicely succeeds at blending hard-core sex with light comedy in its first half, if not in the prosaic "drama" of its second act. (Variety's Todd McCarthy called it "the cinematic equivalent of a relationship that begins with sex on the first date and then wants to get more serious when you'd rather just have more sex.")
Nevertheless, kudos to Mitchell for daring to explore the provocative no-man's-land between art and obscenity. As landmarks go, this is more "Satyricon" than "Last Tango in Paris" _ just a naively joyous idea of better living through sexual chemistry.
The film is unrated.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette film critic Barry Paris can be reached at parispg48(at)aol.com.)
