Shortbus 2006

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Shortbus' surprisingly sweet, compassionate tone never flags, helping the movie overcome its own flaws. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: A rather sweet, wistful little movie that just happens to have a lot of explicit sex in it. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: 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. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: Following Mitchell's delightful 2001 rock musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, the director's Shortbus is another marvelous mix of very adult, very overt themes and images coupled with a sense of childlike innocence and awe. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: One woman's quest for the perfect orgasm may strike sophisticated viewers as the stuff of sexual farce at best, but Sook-Yin Lee's Sofia brings both emotion and eroticism to the proceedings, and for this Mr. Mitchell should be commended. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: It runs out of energy before the end. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: The film proves that nudity and unbridled sexuality alone are not enough to entertain. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: Shortbus is very funny, and quite moving at times. There are some neat low-budget stylistic touches as well. Read more

Steve Murray, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Yes, Shortbus is all about hooking up, but in emotional as much as sexual ways. That's what makes the movie engaging, and sometimes even moving. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: [Shortbus] spends a lot of time in those messy gray areas, discovering how sex can clear things up or make them cloudier Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: A film that's thoughtful and exuberant, achingly sad and wildly funny. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: [Mitchell] reclaims sex -- filming it, watching it, talking about it, doing it -- as something both deeply funny and transcendently human: a revolving door that leads to the senses and to the heart. Read more

Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times: Its sexual provocations aside, the film works best as an idealized portrait of a specific time and place, a hipster bohemia where everyone struggles to find meaning in the everyday acts of living. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: Despite the buzz about its hard-core hanky-panky, writer-director John Cameron Mitchell paints a bland, bleak portrait of navel-gazing New Yorkers driven by carnal pleasures -- or lack of them. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: I kid you not, 'heartwarming' is the best word to describe it. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Indulgent, immature, self-preoccupied and downright silly a good deal of the time, Shortbus manages to make sex look like no fun at all. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: Shortbus is chipper, it's fresh, it emits a distinct musk of controversy. I'll take the longbus. Read more

Mark Bourne, Film.com: Shortbus is not, above all, 'dirty.' What it is, in fact, is a nice movie, one of the nicest to come down the pike since March of the Penguins. Read more

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: Surprisingly sweet and unabashedly graphic. Read more

Mario Tarradell, Dallas Morning News: It's more than a porno movie with a plot. The reality of the heart manages to always temper the allure of the flesh. Ultimately, Mr. Mitchell shows us that sex doesn't mean a whole lot without a deeper connection. Read more

Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly: The boldest provocation of Mitchell's sweet, tender and gently funny film may be its exuberant celebration of community and togetherness at a cultural moment rife with fatalism and disconnect. Read more

John Anderson, Newsday: On one hand... [Shortbus] is a libertine's dream; on the other, it's a deliriously moral film. Read more

David Ansen, Newsweek: If the brush strokes are sometimes a bit sloppy, the grand design of Shortbus endears. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: It's not art, it's not shocking and worst of all, it's not even particularly new. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: If [Mitchell's] goal was to integrate actual sex into fictional characters' lives in ways that are not distracting, a reality check is in order. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Mitchell has stated that his goal with Shortbus was to make a serious film that incorporates hardcore material. To an extent, he has done that. The problem is it's not a good movie. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The movie is so open about sex, and approaches it with such affectionate bewilderment, that it feels like an anomaly in our so-called sex-obsessed culture: I've felt sleazier looking at ads for Captain Morgan's rum. Read more

Kate Taylor, Globe and Mail: The whole experience is enough to make one give thanks for the missionary position, and heterosexual complacency in surely not the reaction Shortbus was looking for. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: On its own, the movie feels, while engaging, provocative and hugely watchable (and you'll have to trust me on this, not simply because of its genuinely daring sex scenes) also slightly tentative and vague. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A sweet, very funny, volcanically romantic comedy-drama about relationships in post-9/11 New York City. Read more

Ben Walters, Time Out: Few arthouse directors have put real sex to such narratively constructive and credibly, humorously human use. Read more

Melissa Anderson, Time Out: Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Playfully and provocatively entertaining for roughly the first half, but loses staying power thereafter when investment in the uncompelling characters' problems is requested. Read more

Jim Ridley, Village Voice: As with Brokeback Mountain, though, it's not the sexual content that seems revolutionary; it's the mainstream friendliness. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: The premise -- a roundelay of New Yorkers looking for connection, or to escape it -- feels tired. Read more