Shortbus

I don’t have much to say about this film, except to take the opportunity to recommend John Cameron Mitchell’s first film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, which has an energy and impact that this second lacks. Hedwig is really one of the best rock films ever, an excellent translation of a Downtown NYC musical review about a transsexual singer from East Berlin. Shortbus comes out of the same downtown milieu, shares its free spirit but not its drive or raucous humor. There are a few laughs, but the new film is sweet and inconsequential rather than sexy and stirring -- despite the explicit sex, both hetero- and homo-, on display. Made of the intertwined stories of a sex therapist (no -- “couples counselor”) in search of her own first orgasm, a gay couple coping with one guy’s depression, and a reluctant dominatrix looking for genuine friendship, the film winds up as a big group hug, but not one you really want to get into. (2006, Images, n.) *5+* (MC-64.)