Hi, Mom!

They made some weird stuff together. Brian De Palma always has been a director with an unique and unusual style, that always had been quite experimental and I love him for that but that doesn't mean that I think that all of his movies are very good.

"Hi, Mom!" is far from a great movie because it feels like such a big mess. The story is being all over the place and it makes lots of sudden jumps and which the story just completely takes another turn and becomes one about something totally different. Like basically all of De Palma's earliest movies, this one feels more like an art-house one.

The movie got shot as if they improvised a lot of stuff just on the spot. Also the actors seemed to have improvised quite a lot while playing, which is something that I do like about this movie. The movie does not feels stylized or planned out but more feels rebellious and simplistic, which adds to the whole satire element of the movie.

As a satire this movie does has some messages in it and it also at times does this in a good way. The movie does really become an effective one in certain parts but this doesn't of course prevent the movie from being a very disjointed one.

Not an horrible movie but still far too messy and odd for me to really like it or consider this a watchable one for just everyone.

6/10

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Long before either Robert DeNiro or Brian DePalma were famous, they teamed for this low budget satire on Urban Life in late 60s NYC. The resulting film was a mixed bag at best, with one truly brilliant sequence - the guerrilla theater piece "Be Black, Baby" - a few clever observations and a fair bit of dead time, where it seems as if nobody came up with much, and it got filmed anyway. DeNiro plays a Vietnam vet who wanders about NYC filming things 'peeping Tom' style, looking for a purpose in life or a personal mission. If this sounds like Travis Bickle (Taxi Driver) with a camera rather than a cab, it sure does, but unfortunately, DeNiro has less to do that is cinematically captivating here than in his "Are you talking' to me?" moments as Bickle. The character is less interesting on screen, less well-formed and thus less of a scene-stealer. Plus, DePalma was clearly so enamored of the film- making process that the viewer is supposed to find the voyeuristic act of simply filming stuff to be as orgasmic as the director thinks it is, even when nothing much very interesting is being filmed. I still recommend the movie but urge caution. The good parts here are really good. It would be a better movie, obviously, if there were more of them.

Robert De Niro plays a would-be filmmaker in New York City who is given $2000 by a porno producer to make Peep Art--filming the sexual exploits of his neighbors directly out his apartment window--but action is slow, so he gets to know the woman living across from him by pretending they had a date. Another of De Niro's neighbors, a white stage producer, promotes his show, "Be Black Baby", by stirring up the public with on-the-street commentary on what it's like to be black in America. Audacious early effort from writer-director Brian De Palma, a quasi-follow-up to his "Greetings" from 1968, has some very funny revue-style sequences with tricky staging, although the second-act (with white actors in black-face and black actors in white-face) is too hostile and ugly and shuts down the comedy. The two halves of the picture never really jell, anyway, and one begins to miss the easy, naturally comic dialogue from the opening. ** from ****

'Hi, Mom!' is supposedly a sequel to Brian De Palma's earlier 'Greetings', but the connections are a bit tenuous, even though Robert De Niro once again plays Jon Rubin. Is he the same character? I suppose so, but it's hard to say. Alan Garfield and Gerrit Graham also reappear. Garfield could well be the same guy, he's involved in pornography after all, but Graham is most definitely playing a different person. It's just one of many fascinating things about this unique movie, which is both funnier and darker than 'Greetings'. Rubin is a Vietnam vet who fancies himself a movie director, or maybe this is just an excuse to spy on the occupants of the building opposite. They include Graham, a radical involved in guerrilla theatre and the black power movement (there's a priceless moment where he paints himself black), and the sexy Judy (Jennifer Salt who subsequently co-starred in De Palma's breakthrough thriller 'Sisters'), who he decides to seduce (another classic scene). De Niro is on top form throughout, I really enjoyed his performance. Charles Durning has a hilarious bit at the beginning as the building Super, and cult fave Paul Bartel ('Eating Raoul') can be spotted if you keep your eyes open. The highlight of the movie is the brilliant 'Be Black Baby' sequence, which has to be seen to be believed. De Palma is a talented and versatile director who rarely gets the credit he deserves. Those who simplistically dismiss him as nothing but a Hitchcock rip-off would do well to watch 'Greetings' and 'Hi, Mom!' two of the most original and innovative American movies of the late 60s/early 70s. And Robert De Niro fans just have to see his work in these two movies, and I also recommend they check him out in Roger Corman's 'Bloody Mama' with Shelley Winters and Bruce Dern, and his small role in 'Born To Win' opposite George Segal. These all show that he really had something special going on before he teamed up with Scorsese.

I rated this movie in the middle only because I feel there were two distinct parts to the movie with an indecisive end. The first part, with Robert De Niro prominent is very funny, at time uproariously so. (The opening with Charles Durning is priceless.) The part with the theater of "Be Black Baby" was pretty strong stuff, even today. It was real and scary and had no relationship to the first part. This part was really tense and made me shudder several times.

The problem I had was what did the De Niro part have to do with the "Be Black Baby" part. Maybe I am old-fashioned and wanted something more linear or, really, coherent. Perhaps the appeal of this movie is the lack of obedience to strictures. I do applaud that kind of freedom, but only when it works. I laughed and cringed during what felt like a double feature. Both parts work very well. But together they make an uneasy mix.