We’ll Go See It For The Dialogue

We have, for a long time, been wondering whether John Cameron Mitchell’s long-hyped sex movie would actually be made. For a while it was entitled “John Cameron Mitchell’s Untitled Sex Project,” but now it has the slightly mysterious title “Short Bus.” In college, we were in a student film with one of the prospective cast members. We asked if he felt uncomfortable having sex on screen. He said it wasn’t about sex; it was about “communication.” We noticed he didn’t make the final cast – perhaps he needed to work on his oral skills?

Then we ran into JMC over the holidays at a formal party at a friend’s townhouse. We were wearing a sweater and jeans, and he was wearing a flannel shirt and corduroys. Everyone else was wearing suits and gowns, so naturally we spent the evening hanging out. He said everything was going well but they hadn’t had much luck finding a distributor. Sounds like things haven’t changed. While JMC seemed like he was made of gold after “Hedwig And the Angry Inch,” we’re not sure this project sounds as well-crafted, or will have as much, um, staying power.

But it does remind us... When we were in middle school our next door neighbor was in a wheelchair, so we would ride the short bus on the way to school. The bus would go from neighborhood to neighborhood, all over our little town, picking up all of the handicapped kids and some of the kids who lived nearby. There was a kid named Cory on the bus, who was severely handicapped in several respects. The un-handicapped high school students quickly discovered that if they all whistled, Cory, who was probably 18 at the time, would think the bus was full of birds. He would begin clapping, which would get the bus driver angry and get Cory in trouble.

We think a movie about THAT kind of short bus would be much more compelling.