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Shortbus [DVD] [2006]
 
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Shortbus [DVD] [2006]

DVD ~ Yolanda Ross
3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.97 & eligible for Free UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
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Shortbus [DVD] [2006] + 9 Songs [DVD] [2004] + The Dreamers [DVD]
Total RRP: £59.97
Price For All Three: £13.03

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  • This item: Shortbus [DVD] [2006] DVD ~ Yolanda Ross

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    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    Eligible for FREE UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • 9 Songs [DVD] [2004] DVD ~ Kieran O'Brien

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    Eligible for FREE UK delivery on orders over £5 with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Shortbus [DVD] [2006]
74% buy the item featured on this page:
Shortbus [DVD] [2006] 3.7 out of 5 stars (24)
£3.97
9 Songs [DVD] [2004]
8% buy
9 Songs [DVD] [2004] 2.4 out of 5 stars (48)
£4.98
Lust, Caution [DVD] [2007]
7% buy
Lust, Caution [DVD] [2007] 4.0 out of 5 stars (13)
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The Dreamers [DVD]
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Product details

  • Actors: Yolanda Ross, Lindsay Beamish, Sook-Yin Lee, Paul Dawson, PJ DeBoy
  • Directors: John Cameron Mitchell
  • Format: Anamorphic, PAL
  • Language English
  • Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
  • Number of discs: 1
  • Classification: 18
  • Studio: Universal Pictures Video
  • DVD Release Date: 18 Jun 2007
  • Run Time: 97 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B000NT6HRI
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 791 in DVD (See Bestsellers in DVD)

    Popular in these categories:

    #4 in  DVD > DVD Bargains > By Price > DVDs under £5
    #11 in  DVD > Gay & Lesbian
    #100 in  DVD > DVD Bargains > By Price > Up to 70% off > Up to 70% off DVDs

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Reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
In his aim to make an honest film about sex, John Cameron Mitchell (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) has taken a somewhat documentary approach to Shortbus, a film describing various New Yorkers' sexual pathos. Framed by shots roving a homemade diorama of the city, Shortbus is comprised of vignettes featuring actors who helped craft this story of people's disconnect in sexual endeavors. Jamie (PJ DeBoy) and James (Paul Dawson), a gay couple experiencing a lull in their relationship, visit Sophia (Sook-Yin Lee), a sex therapist whose inability to orgasm results in her clients inviting her to a sex club after which the film is titled. Sophia's husband, Rob (Raphael Barker), is also willing to experiment, so the two independently embark on adventures in self-pleasure. Dominatrix Severin (Lindsay Beamish) plays a crucial role in Sophia and Rob's lives, as her search for real humanity overlaps with their desire for passion.

As each character's plot complicates, the viewer sees a similar melancholy bulldozing its way into these seemingly disparate lives. The depression is repeatedly used in comedic scenes, such as when James is asked on a date while still hospitalised for his attempted suicide. Yo La Tengo's score, which includes Animal Collective among others, lends this film a graceful ambience. Unlike porn, Shortbus has a resonance that encourages the viewer to consider one's own sex life as an important aspect of happiness. --Trinie Dalton

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 sexed and sexually frustrated New Yorkers, all of whom find some kind of salvation at an underground club named Shortbus. Anything goes at Shortbus--wild orgies between people from different ages, backgrounds, and sexual preferences are treated as commonplace, and most of the sex scenes shot through Mitchell's voyeuristic lens are completely unsimulated. Mitchell allows little time for his audience to pause for breath, opening Shortbus with a frantic collage of copulation and carnality that features most of his central characters. These include Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee), a sex therapist who has never reached full orgasm; gay couple James (Paul Dawson) and Jamie (PJ DeBoy); and Severin (Lindsay Beamish), a dominatrix who finds herself unable to find true love. Mitchell lets his cast of characters unravel their tales of woe, interspersing the touching and mostly sad stories with eye-popping scenes from Shortbus and swooping birds-eye shots of a computer simulated version of New York City. The director also draws heavily on an indie-rock soundtrack, making repeated and effective use of the beautiful ‘Winters Love’ by Brooklyn-based group Animal Collective. But it's the sex scenes that will really get tongues wagging, and its testament to Mitchell's fearless and uncompromising vision that he depicts sexual acts that run the full coital gamut, from amusing to titillating to shocking. Amid all the boundary-pushing there is a tender heart buried in Shortbus's central narrative, which revolves around the search for identity and acceptance.

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Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
5 star:
 (8)
4 star:
 (11)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
 (5)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.7 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Ban this filth!, 4 Mar 2007
By jrhartley - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Shortbus - "a salon for the gifted and challenged". The story is based around Brooklyn's D.U.M.B.O. club (called ShortBus in this film - a reference to the shorter yellow buses that are provided for less-able / special-needs kids in NY) and follows the crossing of paths of the main protagonists therein: Sofia - a sex therapist ("I prefer `couples councillor'") who is "pre-orgasmic" and her partner Rob; a gay couple - Jamie and James, one of whom is manic depressive, and looking to open up the relationship, and a dominatrix by the alais of Severin (who is just looking for a "real human interaction"), all stage managed by Justin Bond - the mistress of Shortbus.

Set against the electrical brown & black-outs that afflicted Manhattan shortly after 9/11, this film sets out to contrast the intensity of their sexual energy and the frequent absence of emotional depth ("I can see the love, but it stops at my skin") - successfully using the parallel of how day to day the energy of the city (the sex) keeps it ticking over, but you need to feel the intimacy of love (the black outs that didn't lead to the widespread looting the NYPD predicted but instead acted as a cohesive moment for the NYC communities).

The film is extremely sexual graphic in places - and I expect will or already has ellicited a campaign by the Daily Mail to "BAN THIS FILTH!". It's far more extreme than Winterbottom's Nine Songs - previously the most "sexually shocking" mainstream UK film - was, and the uncensored nature of these scenes is a tool that director John Cameron Mitchell uses to convey the intensity of the sexual relationships. So, this is definitely not a film you'd want to in the presence of your parents. Whilst the orgies and ejaculations might be the reason the film has attained so much notoriety, it would be a shame if you were put off by the film's sexually explicit nature - I wouldn't have said the sex is gratuitous - it serves to demonstrate the emotionally vapid nature of some of the main characters' lives, and the director also skilfully addresses the wider emotional context. This film rarely misses a beat throughout and finishes with a lavish crescendo that can't help but make you feel that you've felt something as you leave the cinema. Don't accept any edited or censored versions.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars That's another interesting way on seeing the Star Spangled Banner performed, 30 Jun 2007
By Jenny J.J.I. "A New Yorker" (That Lives in Northern Nevada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   
"Shortbus" deals with many of the same issues as "Hedwig" and the "Angry Inch," but in a new and equally groundbreaking way. Yes, there is hardcore sex, and honestly, there should have been even more, it is used as another layer of paint on one of the most poignant canvases I have seen in years. This film is part of a new breed of cinema that dares to force actors to cross over the line from acting in a film and portraying a fictional character to actually being a subject in a documentary: the once strict line that distinguishes where a character begins and an actor ends has become totally blurred and is no longer recognizable for the actors or rather beautiful and real human beings who appear on screen in this film.

As much as this film is about its characters and their lives, it is about the state of underground or lack of underground art and culture in New York City, particularly the lower east side art scene - a nostalgic yearning for a time and an age of culture and community that is sadly gone in present day Manhattan. Theoretically, "Shortbus" forces us to question the nature of the spectator in a movie theater, watching a TV screen or computer monitor, or looking through the viewfinder of a camera. It is rare for any film these days to ask and provoke the kind of emotional responses and questions about the nature of spectatorship, voyeurism, censorship, viewership, and pornography while at the same time pushing the boundaries of cinema, redefining cinematic, and fusing multiple aesthetic systems that "Shortbus" does in under two hours. The actors were earnest in their efforts (and brave to perform the sex scenes), although no Oscar-winning performances I'd say. I did find Paul Dawson to be quite effective in his ability to convey emotion, esp. in the scene where he's looking out the window at PJ DeBoy. Despite not speaking or moving, we can feel his emotion.

A note about the ending without ruining anything: many people that will balk at it for not being realistic or digging deep enough or as deep as the rest of the film may be missing part of the point. The whimsical CGI animation used throughout the film should immediately tip you off to the fact that there is a magical fantasy element present in the storyline that is represented by "Shortbus" itself. This when combined with the nostalgic seedy underground art scene depicted in the film causes one to realize that the ending and resolution of each character's issues is in fact a just a continuation of that nostalgic fantasy for the bygone lower Manhattan cabaret scene, and thus adds another bitter sweet layer to the film. We can already guess the brutal reality of what will happen to each set of characters and their relationships in the film, but that doesn't mean it is what has to happen on screen. What happens inside "Shortbus" is a hopeful and optimistic fantasy set in a burlesque and erotic theatre of the absurd, what happens outside is our hardboiled reality.

If you cannot find yourself somewhere in this film, somewhere in the mythical "Shortbus," you might not actually exist.
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40 of 43 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Great soundtrack, great characters, 16 April 2007
I saw this film a while ago but its just been one of those ones that sticks in my head. Its strange because at the end of the film I didnt feel like I loved it, but now I've bought the soundtrack and I think I'll end up buying the DVD. The whole film just has this really great atmosphere about it, its sad but its joyous, its dreamy and romantic whilst at times depressing, its full of raw energy but in a strange way very soothing. I suppose the key is that it is bursting at the seams with life in all its colourful and often messy forms. It feels very real and true and there are some beautiful and very touching moments. The characters feel well rounded and not cliched like in so many films trying to be 'different' or controversial'. Much has been made of the graphic sexual nature of the scenes but this couldnt feel less like a porn film and it actually is a joy to see sex depicted in this way on film - sex as part of life, sometimes complicated, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hilarious rather than some ridiculously choreographed performance.
As mentioned earlier, the sound track is great, very varied and really adds to the wonderfully distinctive feel of the whole film- I love the animation they use too.
I read that the director advertised for people willing to play characters that were similar to themselves and that all the actors had lots of imput into the final product -i think this shows as the characters really seem very natural and there are some great performances- I especially liked Jay Brannan as Ceth. Brannan actually features on the sound track singing his own song, Soda Shop which I now love, and think that he will be a big talent in the future, as both an actor and singer/songwriter.
Anyway my advice would be watch this film if you want something genuinely different, enjoyable, thought provoking and lovely!
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 		 Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars weird but interesting
After reading the reviews before watching I knew what to expect, and was wondering which side of the fence I'd land.

I'm with the people who liked it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Flipper

1.0 out of 5 stars Depends what turns you on.
This is probably great if you enjoy watching gay male sex (some of which is pretty graphic). If you don't, then maybe give this a miss; I wish I had!
Published 4 months ago by Bob Yew

5.0 out of 5 stars shortbus = short review
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5.0 out of 5 stars THE MOVIE!!!
The best movie I ahve ever seen. I love this film. I already watched several times and I want to see again.

Buy it. You will not regret for sure. Read more
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4.0 out of 5 stars a rounded view
Ok the reviews this film has, that say it is 'bad' are perhaps fair and just.
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1.0 out of 5 stars Yawningly pretentious, moi?
I bought this after reading all the rave reviews on this very page and, feeling rather duped, I now feel it is my duty to be one of the few voices of sanity. Read more
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4.0 out of 5 stars Muck, muck, muck...oh no wait it's a good film too!
So it begins with a man pleasuring himself into his own mouth - that pretty much sets the tone of the entire movie. Read more
Published 9 months ago by R. Boden

4.0 out of 5 stars Different.
A interesting film,at three for a tenner a bargain.The sex is not as bad as people are saying and it is funny,what do you want for this price,an epic?
Published 9 months ago by N. Tate

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
One of the best films I have seen this year. I was hesitant and the negative reviews prevented me from bying the DVD for some time. I am very happy I finally took the plunge.
Published 14 months ago by GJ Botha

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Cant understand the few negative reviews on here. Aside from the explicit opening scenes, which themselves are cleverly edited and intercut, there is a hysterical rendition of the... Read more
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