Shortbus (Unrated Edition)

• 9 songs - Unrated Full Uncut Version
• Lie With Me
• Another Gay Movie
• The Dreamers (Original Uncut NC-17 Version)
• Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
• Romance
• Dante's Cove - The Complete Second Season
• Caligula (Unrated Version)
• Lust, Caution (Widescreen, NC-17- Rated Edition)
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (New Line Platinum Series)

You'll definitely want to buy the soundtrack. The cast is great, and it was good to see Miriam Shor (Hedwig and teh Angry Inch) making a cameo. Don't be put off by the sex - it's not gratuitous in its nature and really invites the viewer to examine and challenge their own views and ideas - and it is handled so truthfully that even the most uptight prude could not help but see something of themself in each of the characters and laugh. Being a fan of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I had some idea of what to expect from the genius mind of John Cameron Mitchell, but this film blew me away - so thought provoking, touching and at times laugh-out-loud funny. All the perfomances were wonderful, but the thing that made this movie for me was the absolutely beautiful soundtrack which opened up a whole new world of music for me - as well as bringing in a few golden oldies like Anita O'Day in to round it out.

An opening scene that made me drop my Yoplait all over the carpet.the dude's auto-fellatio complete with orgasm. My first reaction was WTF. These characters are all messed up in the head. And then wham. The Q TV moniker for those of us "in-the-know" told me right off the bat that the demographic was aimed at a gay audience. OK, so the credits were the first indication that this was not going to be your garden variety flick. Stupid ending with that lovefest parade and warm and fuzzy song by some washed up tranny. Great production values, but these people have some serious issues.

I think the reasons why I didn't have nearly as much angst as it concluded was merely due to the diversion of its gratuitous sex. Uh, yeah. I'd never heard of this movie until a straight buddy of mine asked me to review his DVD and share my thoughts on whether if it's "borderline gay". So I brushed it off, watched the flick, more sex.singing the national anthem during a three-way.blah, blah.

XXX gets really boring. From experience, I can tell you it is more interesting to sleep with the people who make XXX than to watch their work.

As I kept running across references to Shortbus in my reading, I took a chance. The average viewer-if there is such a thing-will indeed see that finding different approaches to sex is that important in some people's lives.

It is rare in how direct it is about what it has to say, and so brutally honest in what it is portrayed.

It makes it painfully clear that the prices to be paid for such knowledge aren't for the faint of heart. When the young gentleman at the video store told me it had the most graphic sex he'd seen second only to XXX, I almost didn't rent Shortbus.

Movies of this genre are often just so over the top to be tedious.

"Shortbus" is a sex club in New York; sort of a bohemian-like atmosphere in which, as one character describes, "people come here to use 'the motherboard of life' in order to find the right connections". As the film progresses, we watch these characters intersect with one another, and help, solve, or simply listen to each other's life dysfunctions. Like porn, you see people engaging in sex; yet, it is more "humanly" tangible because we feel the genuine emotions coming from each sex act, not just "acting" or rather, mechanical sex. How this film was assmbled is almost as interesting as the film itself: Actors helped craft the script as well as their own characters with Mitchell. Writer-director John Cameron Mitchell did a beautiful job of guiding this tapestry of sexual pathos. But I think you'll be compelled to by the sadness, honesty & compassion of the interweaving plots. If you feel you'll be overwhelmed by the frank content, then don't watch.

Whether the characters are straight, gay, bi-sexual or transgendered, the labels do not matter-they are just people trying to relate to one another through the wonders of sex and love. "Shortbus" is a unique film that is about sex, yet more about everything else in our lives which connects to it. This term is so cliched, but to this film, it really applies: I've never seen anything quite like this movie. Here, people from all walks of life gather to find something-whether through sex or deep conversation.

You get all the things Altman gave us in films like "Nashville" and "Short Cuts": lots of characters, lots of situations, a lot of sadness, but a lot of hope, too. Of course, here you also get lots of sex, in a very graphic manner and in all its various permutations.

If you can take that, and if you don't mind a film that doesn't offer easy answers to its many characters' many predicaments, I think you'll enjoy this movie, or at least find it fascinating. You'll be reassured to see that the challenge of those scenes overwhelmed, at least temporarily, many of the actors called on to perform them.

Maybe because seeing such trepidation on the part of the actors made the sexual problems of their characters, many of which involved shyness and discomfort, feel all the more believeable.

For some reason, it was good to see that hip young people up for being in an edgy, sexy movie could nevertheless feel a little shy when it came to actually doing certain things in front of the camera. If Robert Altman had ever taken on the subject of sex in America in one of his big, sprawling, multi-character epics, the result would probably have looked a lot like John Cameron Mitchell's outrageous yet moving "Shortbus".

By the way, if some of the sex scenes overwhelm you, be sure to watch the special features.