A movie that's not quite porn enough for the skin-flick fans and not substantial enough for filmgoers who seek a film that somehow combines sex, heart and intelligence.
Comment
10/27/06
Shortbus (2006)
65
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:118
Fresh:77
Rotten:41
Average Rating:6.4/10
Consensus: The sex may be explicit, but Mitchell integrates it into the characters' lives and serves the whole story up with a generous dose of sweetness and wit.
Theatrical Release:01-12-2006
Synopsis: Writer/director John Cameron Mitchell follows up the cult classic HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH with another salacious slice of sex-laden cinema. Mitchell interweaves three separate tales of highly... [More]
Starring: Raphael Barker, Lindsay Beamish, Justin Bond, Paul Dawson
Director: John Cameron Mitchell
Reviews for Shortbus
Rises above late-night basic cable trash thanks to the courageous cast and Mitchell's accomplished direction.
10/27/06
A film that's thoughtful and exuberant, achingly sad and wildly funny.
10/26/06
... in the end it will be remembered for proving that the most important sexual organ is the brain.
10/26/06
Is this movie just an excuse to film a bunch of people having sex? As far as I'm concerned, yup.
10/26/06
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.
10/25/06
Gets points for originality of design, but as is often the case with scripts written by committee, the execution is dramatically uninteresting.
10/21/06
A rather sweet, wistful little movie that just happens to have a lot of explicit sex in it.
10/20/06
Lancingly funny, brash and alive, this hotsie-totsie peeper aches for love, and the gay fire of pre-AIDs partydom.
10/20/06
Shortbus strains at times with its acrobatic, real sex and search for bigger meanings. But beneath those elements lies a kind, open heart.
10/20/06
The actors, while physically supple, can't draw us through Mitchell's sketchy script.
10/20/06
Shortbus feels uninhibited but uninhabited, a clinical schematic exercise in the intercourse of human events.
10/20/06
Shortbus' surprisingly sweet, compassionate tone never flags, helping the movie overcome its own flaws.
10/20/06
Obviously, Shortbus isn't for everyone. But adventurous filmgoers will find here an entertaining, funny and, yes, moral look at sex, love and all the stops in between.
10/20/06
Indulgent, immature, self-preoccupied and downright silly a good deal of the time, Shortbus manages to make sex look like no fun at all.
10/20/06
Surprisingly sweet and unabashedly graphic.
10/20/06
There's no real prurience or eroticism, but the movie does have an aura of self-gratification...
10/20/06
Offers poignant and comedic insight into sex and relationships through some very honest, forthright performances.
10/19/06
Mitchell's gift as a filmmaker is to take people who seem way out and show us they're actually looking for the same things we all are.
10/19/06
At a time when American moviegoers have become numb to the rampant, mainstream pornography of violence, it's refreshing to see a non-mainstream movie that wears its heart and lust on its sleeve, and has anything but violence on its mind.
10/19/06
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