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