Mga PinakaMahabang One Night Stand

A collection of four short films about one-night stands among men with men, Ang Pinakamahabang Mga One Night Stand is good and bad, but still unified: Each story moves in a world after liberation -- where couples can have open relationships and agree to do threesomes, or sex with strangers is a solution to forget our problems. The spirit isprogressive, but also somewhat removed from the rest of the world. There's nary a woman in the cast. I won't be surprised if those unfamiliar with the lifestyle will find themselves either lost or turned off. But there's a promotion of particular values going on here: In the sexually liberated world where sleeping around is accepted, the most important thing is how much we care for our fellow men.
"Wait, Waiter, Wait!", directed by Cris Pablo, is standard unimaginative erotica, in which two men meet in a bar and we simply wait for them to get it on. "Balot", directed by Harvey Estradough, at least has surprises. I can't tell which two men will finally end up together, and it climaxes in a silly, even gross, flirtation using the famous duck egg delicacy. "The Longest One Night Stand", which is actually an old one from 2006, directed by Eduardo Roy Jr., is domestic melodrama weighed down by the hero's self-pity. It stands out from the rest of the films in visual style, because it's the most belabored, and cloying.
The best of the bunch is "Tutok", also by Cris Pablo, which finds the lives of two friends threatened by so-called gay serial killers they met on the internet -- a scenario whipped up from news headlines. The short isn't always stellar technically, but it settles into a thrilling rhythm, with bursts of good humor. A word of caution for adventurous gay men is sneaked in, but what it does right is that it gets us to root for the good guys and delivers on upliftment. The effort is deserving of at least a B, but the entire set gets an average of...