Sex and Ligging

Ooh! Cover my eyes! I went to the UK premiere of Short Bus last night, and some of it was downright pornographic. Short Bus is the latest film by John Cameron Mitchell, of Hedwig and the Angry Inch fame (for some reason I always call it angry itch), and stars my platonic amore, the lovely Justin Bond.

The idea for the film came from the blackout in New York city when John, Justin and a group of friends who were also in the film went to the Splash club and hung out. DJ Sammy Jo played music on a battery powered beat box and people were dancing, chatting, getting drunk and having sex.

It focuses on the sex lives of many of the cast: Sofia, played by Sook-Yin Lee, the sex therapist who can't have an orgasm; Severin (Lindsay Beamish), the dominatrix who can't form relationships; Jamie and James (PJ DeBoy and Paul Dawson), the gay couple who have differing needs; and the snooper from across the street who watches everything through binoculars from his window. (A bit like Toby)

There's lots of hot cock action and hetero thrusting, also masturbation scenes that include a great clip of a guy who goes to enormous effort in order to suck his own dick. The's a bit of lesbo action, but it's not proliferent.

At the beginning its fast moving and interesting, then later spends more time going deeper in to the minds of some of the characters and their inner turmoil. I'd got a tiny bit bored by the end.

Justin's roll is the hostess of the club were most of the action takes place. He takes people around, introduces them and gets most of the killer punchlines. The cast wrote most of the script themselves, so that's no real surprise. The film ends with him singing a heartlifting song about how everybody gets it in the end. He gets to run around with a loud-hailer with a great big flower on his head. I bet he was in hog heaven.

After the film Toby and I ligged off to the after show where I bumped right into Suppositori Spelling. He told me had auditioned for the film and, having just seen it, was gutted to have not had a part.

After a torturous trip to the way crowded bar for our free champagne, Toby and I settled down in the stage area to wait for Justin's performance.

He started with Traffic's Low Spark of High Heeled Boys, then one-by-one brought out some of the cast members who each did a song. By this time much of the crowd was yapping and it was getting difficult to hear. John Cameron Mitchell stood his ground and refused to sing until people shut up. It was his party after all, why the hell do people have to be so rude?

Justin closed the show with the Everybody Gets It song from the movie and looked relieved to finally get off stage. After a chat and and many hugs we found they'd closed the bar so it seemed like it was time to leave - goodbye glamour, hello night bus.