PICK SHORTBUS Hedwig and the Angry Inch star/creator John Cameron Mitchell’s eagerly awaited sophomore effort has already generated reams of ink over its subject matter — sex — and Mitchell’s decision to work with mostly nonprofessional actors willing to engage in real bouts of coitus uninterruptus. But beneath that outré exterior, Shortbus is, like Hedwig, a gentle paean to pansexuality, acceptance and good old-fashioned human desire, set in an idealized boho New York City where artists and other assorted misfits haven’t yet been priced out of existence. Mitchell’s characters are an agreeably diverse lot: a Chinese-Canadian sex therapist (Sook-Yin Lee) who’s never had an orgasm; a former child star (PJ DeBoy) who loves everybody, “especially cute people”; his boyfriend (Paul Dawson), a former hustler turned Jacuzzi lifeguard; and an acerbic dominatrix (Lindsay Beamish) who, like most everyone else in the film, just wants to feel something. Together and separately, they find their way to an underground salon “for the gifted and specially challenged,” where a cross-dressing “mistress” of ceremonies (Justin Bond) presides over a carnival of carnal pleasure. (My favorite: the pile of bodies at rest and in motion in the “sex not bombs” room.) The sex in the movie is “real” not just because it isn’t simulated, but because the bodies taking part in it are of all shapes and sizes, including a great many that would never pass a Hollywood screen test. But 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 di... More >>>