Available Men

Saw it at OutFest last weekend, loved it and crowd had a great, very audible response to it. Sure, the conceit is obvious, but this writer-director knows how to milk extremely clever dialog and shock reactions extremely well. The characters are so crazily obsessive with what each of them wants -- great -- push it -- fun -- but the far more difficult and satisfyingly impressive task is that this writer-director has his crazy protagonists elicit an equally strong response from their victims! Talk about push-pull craziness. Everyone wants something pretty urgently.

#1--very well-written (sure, over the top super-real characters but based on core truth) #2--well-directed. The director has guided and balanced these over-the-top characters to have real needs and real reactions (not an easy task!); these actors are committed and do a great job. Sit back in your seat and laugh: very very enjoyable film.

Be on the lookout for David Dean Bottrell's next film. Definitely knows what he's doing. Characters, comedy, writing, guiding the acting, a short that is a polished product? -- he delivers.

I saw this at the Waterfront Film Fetival in Saugatuck, Michigan.

This movie was hilarious. Directed by David Dean Bottrell, it was the funniest short film of the festival. It's about a Hollywood agent meeting up with a screenwriter and a gay man waiting for his blind date. After a case of mistaken identities it's nonstop comedy. I would love to see this film again and show it to all my friends. It's so perfectly executed and made, I loved every moment of it. The acting was great, the editing was cool, and the sound choices were perfect. If only more short films like this were made. I hope it will be made available for the general audience, everyone will love it.

This is a very clever little film, feeding off our recent understanding, thanks to "Entourage," of what Hollywood agents do. It involves a mix-up involving two people waiting at a cocktail lounge for someone they have never seen. One man is a screenwriter who is getting a lot of "buzz," who is waiting for an agent who wants to represent him. The screenwriter has been courted by every agent in Hollywood and expects to be showered with promises. The other man is a sincere, romantic type, hoping for true love from an Internet hookup. The acting is vivid, the dialogue is over the top, and the joke works. It's a film made by Hollywood professionals, and has a slick feel to it, which is appropriate for a film like this, which depends on quick cutting and well-delivered lines.

Unlike so many short films which go nowhere and seem more like badly executed skits, this one tells us the story of four characters in a short time, and really comes across as a complete movie. And a really good movie, at that. The dialogue is clever and witty. The acting is strong. The entire film has a very slick look. Even the sound, lighting and other production values are a cut above those of most short films I've seen. The "twist" is completely fresh and new, and manages to avoid clichés. The writer could easily have resorted to bad clichés and "Three's Company" type gags and misunderstandings, but her did. I should also add that I find it refreshing to see a so-called "gay" film that doesn't take itself too seriously, but doesn't poke fun at homosexuals, either. This little gem worked for me on every level.

It's often difficult to find short films, so I was especially glad to stumble onto this one. Available Men runs on the Logo channel's CLick List - if you get a chance to see it, do so. This is probably a filmmaker we should be watching out for.

AVAILABLE MEN is a very mixed bad of short films about gay subjects that very from excellent to weak. Fortunately for the film's success the series opens with the very finest of the shorts, the AVAILABLE MEN of the title. As written and directed by David Dean Bottrell is a takeoff on the standard confused identity story but the film has very funny, snappy dialogue, a quartet of handsome hunks who also happen to act very well (read professionally) and the piece just works tightly and seamlessly. The four actors who seem as though they could handle about any role are Brian Gattas, Jack Plotnick, Richard Ruccolo and Kostas Sommer. Watch for these names as they are sure to pop up in bigger films! As for the other films all are obviously student efforts and should be viewed as such. They have their redeeming graces but stumble for the most part on clumsy scripts, cheap camera work, amateur acting, over the top ideas, and painful lack of substance. They are variably entertaining and some (as the last extended piece about the gay student body president of a high school) attempt to make some social statements. But the reason to watch the movie is for the first short 'Available Men.' It is a winner, and were it by itself the rating for the movie would be considerably higher! Grady Harp