The new movie "Shortbus ," openingWednes day, is a valentine to New York --or at least, the idealized New York that exists in the minds of the dreamers who flock here from all OVer the country.</p><p> It's a Ne,,' York where misfits and the lonely can connect up at events like the title gathering , a semiregular "happening" where a sex therapist who can't have an o!gasm and a gay couple who maybe want to spice up their relationship will be welcomed with very open arms "It's a New York film, but not in the sense that a Woody Allen film or a Martin ScorsE:se or even a Jim Jarrnllsch film is," says director John Cameron Mitchell, who made headlines 'around the world when he post-. ed a casting call looking for actors who were willing to have sex on camera for this non porno- graphic drama "This is a real immigranrs tale, All these characters are immi grants Woody Alien is deal- ing with the fact that all his rel atives are 111 the neighborhood and coming over to his house in the upper East Side_ In out' case, none of us really started her~ and maybe we still have it starry-eyed view of it " Mitchel! can be excused if the stars are still in his eyes His Off-Broadway musical "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" became a lel'it imate phenomenon that morphed into a successful, well-reviewed feature film_ Now he has followed it with "Shortbus " While making an independent film is never easy, the $2 million "Short bus" has overcome the timidity of investors and enjoyed a charmed, l'aptnrous premiere at Cannes, followed by more applause at the 10ronto Film Festival and now a homecoming to New York that feels right "I always Ileep my expectatlOns low so as not to be disappointed," says the 43-year-old Mitchell "But this has reall)' oLltstripped anything we could have hoped for Granted, we don't know what's going to happen na tionally.</p><p> But "_ we're booked in over 60 theate!s around the country.</p><p> INational theater ownels] are booking it because they really smell money And some of them are actually moved by the film, which is always good, too" For real-life New York couple Paul Dawson and PJ DeBoy -who play "the two Jamies" in the film and are e at the center of a three-way lhat includes the singing of ''The Star-Spangle d Banner" -watcl~ng peopl~ get into the spiritorthe film has been a kIck.</p><p> D~Lte being tagged as controversIal. it has been Warn1lOg up audiences_ . "In Toronto, we saw it with two older women SI[' ting next to us," ays DeBoy, "When the first e~I~C It scene came up. they said, 'Oh my God! l?at s dIS gusting!' And yet they were_thrilled about If. too, When the movie we gomg mto another sexual area, one would grab the other one and say, 'Here we gol' "I think when you give people a chance I be challenged, they welcome that challenge, " Opening the film here is the leasl stressful tage of the journey for Mitchell, be?,u e, b~ says, "Short bus· is wrapped up in everythmg the cuy stands for: "We love New York, and this fitm could not have been made anywhere else: says Mitchell, "Maybe artists are being slowly priced out ... but I g:1 a fee! ing of optimism when I see young people sttll movtng here because it's New York," •
