HOT TOMORROWS

title: HOT TOMORROWS

year: 1977

cast: Ken Lerner, Ray Sharkey, Vic Argo, Orson Welles

rating: **

A Gothic WHO'S THAT KNOCKIN' AT MY DOOR has two twenty-something-year-old men, Ken Lerner, who's writing a cathartic novel about his dead aunt, and Ray Sharkey, who's more spontaneous than deep, hanging out and doing close to nothing. They go to a bar where Danny Elfman is singing cabaret, meet Victor Argo and Herve Velechez, then visit a funeral home, have coffee, take a tour, return to the bar, then to a diner, drive around and talk some more... mostly about death; Lerner's obsessed with it and Sharkey doesn't care either way. At the end of the night the two friends part: Lerner writes more about his aunt (we see clips of his characters as he's writing) and gets news Sharkey has died. After which our grimy hero drives around alone, and at this point the film, having lost its catylist, isn't interesting. Not like it ever really was, but at least there was a cozy camaraderie between the two leads. Martin Brest wrote and directed this B&W low-low-budget indie right before hitting mainstream with GOING MY WAY, BEVERLY HILLS COP, MIDNIGHT RUN, and eventually his Waterloo disaster, GIGLI. Orson Welles provides the radio announcer's voice for the cemetery.

STUNTS

title: STUNTS

year: 1977

cast: Robert Forster, Fiona Lewis, Darrell Fetty, Joanna Cassidy, Ray Sharkey, Bruce Glover

director: Mark L. Lester

rating: ***1/2

Mark L. Lester rules. STUNTS involves stuntmen getting picked off by a mysterious killer. Robert Forster's little brother is one of them, and he investigates. Darrell Fetty, Joanna Cassidy, Fiona Lewis, Bruce Glover and the late Ray Sharky round out the cast. The acting is wonderful and the action is bar none. The stuntmen are killed off like campers in a slasher flick, and the tension mounts with precision. Lester is a miracle worker. He takes low budget movies and turns them into gold. Or at least, silver. And with Robert Forster at the helm: this one shines.