Shortbus

Shortbus

10.26.06 (3:08 pm)   [edit]
I actually saw this film in Berkeley the weekend before last as part of a disastrous date. Ironically, this is only the second time I've seen a film at this little one screen Berkeley theatre, and the last time was also a disastrous date. I'm sensing a theme.

I have one impression of this film that overwhelms all others. Call me immature, but... Wow, there is a lot of a cock in this film.

I enjoyed the characters and dialogue, don't get me wrong, but there is a lot of cock in this film. It's very, very explicit. I'm usually like, "Sure, show whatever you want in your film!" and I don't have a problem that the film did this, but I found the constant lingering shots of erect members was terribly distracting and felt it slowed down the movie. Just sayin'. It's not porn exactly, but it's pretty close in several places. (I have to say, this is the only film outside of porn where I have seen semen, for example.) There is no doubt that these actors really are in sexual situations, not just sitting on each other with shorts on hidden beneath a stupid sheet. It does feel more honest and real than fakey Hollywood sex.

I'm not sure if the movie was trying to be shocking or honest or what. I did appreciate that for once sex in a film is not treated as this holy, unapproachable topic and that most of the time sex was portrayed with the sense of humor real sex often requires to be good and comfortable, but I still think the film totally overdid it.

While it's still mostly a talky art film, it at least avoids the slow feeling most such films suffer from. But if you hate talky art films about hip city people loving and losing, you won't find much in this movie. Personally, I like talky art films, so I'm cool with it, but yeah, you don't need so much cock in your movie.

One poster on IMDB said, "Yes there is some rather graphic sex, but to anyone after hitting adulthood it works purely to support the film, erotic would be too strong a word for it." I completely disagree with this statement. Let's go to the dictionary.

"e‧rot‧ic
1. arousing or satisfying sexual desire: an erotic dance.
2. of, pertaining to, or treating of sexual love; amatory: an erotic novel."

The entire movie is about sexual desire and sexual love. Yes, there are relationship issues, but most of the relationship issues are sexual in nature. For example, one character is unsatisfied by her husband because he cannot bring her to orgasm. That's a major plot point. I don't think it's necessarily a problem how explicit the film is, I think the problem is the graphic sex scenes are too frequent and they bog down the film's pacing. I do not think the film should be censored, I think that the pacing needs work.

It was also totally unfair that they picked all these handsome beefcake guys for the constant nakedness, but the women were totally homely. I mean, if you're going to pick actors based on their sex appeal, you'd think you could do the same with actresses, but obviously this complaint only applies if you are a heterosexual male. And I'm not talking about boring plastic surgery Hollywood actresses with giant fake breasts either. Just you know, a pretty girl would have been nice. It's a talky art film. I'm sure you could find some pretty little city dwelling hipster actress chick without trouble. But maybe I'm just not who they were aiming for here.

There's a little bit of girls together, but it's nothing that Mulholland Drive doesn't completely trump, and in Shortbus, women have probably 1/10th the naked time of the men.

I also thought the film's title was totally disingenuous. The main characters hang out at this sex club called Shortbus a lot in the movie, but the name of the club only gets a passing mention, and I almost didn't catch it. I didn't know anything about this movie at all (I had planned to see Science of Sleep but it was sold out) and stumbled onto it for something to see, and I was wondering if it was some "uplifting" nonsense about retarded people overcoming their "challenges" or something. Yeah, work on that name.

I thought the soundtrack was good and very appropriate. If you're going to make a movie about city hipsters, of course you need an indie rock band to handle the music. Good move. I also thought it was very clever the way one character carries around a video camera and films himself and what's going on all the time. It makes a nice commentary on how film is inherently voyeuristic and indicts the audience in a manner similar to Hitchcock's Rear Window, and like that film, features a lot of people looking out windows at each other. In that vein, I also found it totally creepy that one character chose to have sex with someone who had been stalking him and filming him through his window, but hey, characters are allowed to have bad judgment. I really thought the film was well written with good dialogue and the acting was all very natural and believable and the character development was well executed and interesting.

Pretty good if you can handle that kind of thing, but viewer beware: this is a talky art film full of explicit sex, gay sex, and lots of penis.