User reviews

I liked this movie a lot. Part of what is so good about it is its unique story and style. It seems like so many movies tell the same old boring story over and over again. The ones that end up feeling original usually do so by telling the same old story in a new way. Hi, Mom! succeeds doubly, however, by telling an original story in an original way.

Additionally, a very young Robert De Niro plays the lead role very well, as always. This is a different sort of role than what we're used to seeing him in, but it's nice to see that even so early on in his career he was just as talented as he is today. His character is hilarious, often defies logic and leaves the viewers baffled about his intentions and decisions and wondering if he is a crazy person. The character is fun to watch but would be totally unbelievable in the hands of another actor. De Niro pulls it off!

Director Brian De Palma's inexperience is evident at this point early on in his career, but that's not a bad thing. I think most would agree that it was his later films that turned out to be the real stinkers, and his naiveté is put to good use here as it adds to the film's overall style and originality. The style changes to a documentary feel and then back again. Scenes are comically sped up and colorful intertitles are used sporadically. They at first feel out of place this far away from silent films, but then feel as if they could never have been more right. Just like a child learning to walk, De Palma is unsure what he can and can't do, and he doesn't care! He tries it all, and since he's not afraid to fail he only succeeds that much more. Unconfined by convention, he goes off instinct. The world is his oyster and he makes the most of it with what I consider one of his best films.

My favorite part of the film was the very last shot. I won't spoil it by giving it away, but it is totally unpredictable and unexpected, just like the rest of the film. I got the idea that the filmmakers could very easily have been making things up as they went along and not always following the script, making use of what they had available on their limited budget, which in this case worked out well. And the film's final shot is set up so well, from the camera angle to the colors to the overall setup. Then De Niro's perfect delivery to the perfect line makes it perhaps the greatest ending of any movie I've seen.

But the film is not perfect. Even despite its relatively short running time, it still feels slow at certain moments. It's a fun experience, but not everyone will enjoy it. Some may be frustrated by what could be perceived as nonsensical scenes and a disjointed, unrealistic plot. Some may not understand the film, but my advice to them would be to quit trying so hard. Just sit back and enjoy this fun, wacky movie and take from it whatever you will. It doesn't always make perfect sense or wrap up into a neat little bundle, but no one said it has to.

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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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.

'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.

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.

I watched this back to back with the films predecessor Greetings and I found the first one to be better and more sincere. This one just is. It tries to make a statement about the black community but it is lost on me what that statement is. Maybe it is just because I am not of that time. I had high hopes for this one because Greetings was so good but this one is slow paced and has no apparent meaning. I will give it a second viewing at some point because almost all of Brian De Palma's movies are better on the second viewing, Mission Impossible anyone? But I have my doubts about this one. This is most notable as the last film De Palma made before his breakout success with 1973's Sisters. I however think Sisters is even more a piece of garbage than this movie. See this to complete the masterpiece that is Greetings, all though their is not much completion in this.

A very young De Niro incorporates his fresh muscles into acting. And he succeeds in an excellent scene, making the cop on his own, fighting the walls and some garbage cans, striking them very convincingly with the cop stick, anticipating somehow the famous "Taxi Driver" scene. A very good Allen Garfield and a very good Lara Parker. Some good music in the soundtrack too.

I just got done watching an interview with Quentin Tarantino on Charlie Rose from 1994 where Quentin mentioned this movie, his love of Brian DePalma, and how the racial satire of "Hi, Mom!" not only predated but was more biting than "Bonfire of the Vanities".

I'd never seen this movie so I sought it out and watched it on YouTube. Wow, what an annoying schizophrenic mess. No wonder nobody's ever heard of it. It starts out great and with great promise -- the whole Charles During/sleazy landlord bit was truly satirical and funny, as was the initial Peeping Tom idea/DeNiro/Jennifer Salt sequence (she never stops eating during their date) -- but man, then it takes a complete 180 and nose-dives into a lengthy, unfunny, and very annoying cinema verite style whose point I'm still not quite sure about. The entire second half of the film is one long "Huh?", as is the ending. "Hi, Mom!" is a very dated film and an odd duck for sure, though not totally without merit, but all-in-all it's a misguided attempt that deserved to be forgotten.

Just rented and watched HI, MOM! and am blown away by parts of it which are so ahead of its time as to seem contemporary, given today's post-MTV-era approach to film-making.

I would say 80% of this film is utterly brilliant and 20% is merely so-so; scenes with extended dialog sometimes have you checking your watch since the characters may seem to drone on about this-or-that, but there are enough funny moments in these sorts of scenes to keep your attention. And, believe me, you want to stay tuned for the "Be Black, Baby" portion of the film which is nothing short of side-splitting.

The way the film is made, with its occasional fast-paced editing, sped-up footage, and other visual tricks (so dePalma) will appeal greatly to the short-attention-spans of today and seem to anticipate the way films will be made by mainstream producers and directors who cut their teeth creating music videos for MTV. I'm not saying this film feels like a music video, but it uses various visual devices which would become standard fare in music videos and part of today's cinematic vocabulary. Again, I can't reinforce how ahead of its time this film is, apparently foreshadowing things like "reality TV" in the "Be Black, Baby" guerrilla theatre piece.

It's astounding and frightening to see how far we possibly HAVEN'T come past these notions of entertainment, or how they've become scarily mainstreamed by Hollywood.

DeNiro gives a terrific performance and it's a real treat to see him doing something like this at a young age. Kudos to DePalma for this film, also -- it's a filmmaker's dream with all the film-within-film devices and you can see he's working out his fascination with optical and split-screen-type manipulations in a very youthful, bravura sort of way. I would say this is DePalma at his most innovative, aside from his shamefully underrated film SISTERS...before he became bloated and weighed down by the mainstream Hollywood ethic. That's not to say DRESSED TO KILL or CARRIE are bad pictures or bad reflections on DePalma, but they don't reflect the liberated genius that is clearly evident in HI, MOM! or SISTERS.

HI, MOM! is an absolute MUST-SEE for any DePalma fan, general cineaste, film student, or comedy devotee. There are still lessons to be learned from watching this film, even today when it seems all the tricks DePalma used have been exploited ad infinitum. HI, MOM! manages to feel fresh in an era when -- by rights -- it really ought to feel stale.

It's also a tremendously valuable look at pop culture from 1970 and contains some great moments in an adult movie theater. My favorite line occurs there, when a porno producer is counseling DeNiro (a would-be amateur porno producer himself, using his Super 8 mm camera). The two men sit in the back row, discussing the film they're watching and how it's made (and, for the uninitiated, this is typically where men-who-seek-the-company-of-other-men will congregate). Suddenly we have a rapid cut which shows another theater patron has sat himself next to the men, and the patron puts his hand on the leg of one of the men (DeNiro, I think, who brushes it off with some shock and embarrassment). The porno producer (mentor) says very sympathetically, regarding the gesture of the patron, "...he means well." Boy, ain't that the truth! Meanwhile, in the background, another patron is being thrown out of the men's room (presumably for having made a pass at someone homophobic).

Another scene involves a pharmacist opening a condom package and demonstrating its strength and elasticity. Hilarious.

These are issues you would likely never see addressed today in a mainstream Hollywood film because of America's prudishness, or they would be handled in a way that was purely condescending. Instead, DePalma takes you *into* the circumstances, humanizes them, and permits them to be funny on their own merit (he doesn't clobber you over the head with bad, smarmy, self-conscious jokes the way today's writers would).

What is disappointing about this film is that it shows how DePalma's work ultimately suffered as he became a victim of the Hollywood machine -- the studios and execs who no doubt had a hand in reigning in his talent and vision, styling it for a perceived audience.

Again, I can't recommend this film enough -- please rent it and see it and revel in its good-naturedness, it's incredibly edgy foreshadowing of things-to-come, and it's hilariously genuine humor.

I was not prepared for this film to be as batshit crazy as it.

This is six years before Taxi Driver, but it might as well have been Robert De Niro's audition tape for that Scorsese classic, as we see him here in one of his first roles, portraying an extremely disturbed Vietnam veteran in this early feature by Brian De Palma.

Hi, Mom! Begins as a twisted version of Rear Window, if the James Stewart character would have been an aspiring porn director/actor played by Robert De Niro. There is a horrifying, "I can't believe they did that" sequence with him joining a black theatre, performance art, urban guerilla group. And it ends with De Niro going full Travis Bickle.

This film is incoherent to the point of being more a series of skits than a fully realized narrative feature. It has a very offbeat, deeply cynical sense of humor and shifts from being very funny to extremely disturbing in the blink of an eye; often it's both at the same time. De Palma satirizes sensationalist media, our obsession with sex and violence and puts on some film some of the most provocative material regarding race relations in America that I've ever seen.

For some people, Hi, Mom! Might be an unfocused mess of a movie. For others, it may be an exhilarating and bold masterpiece. I think I sit somewhere in the middle, but in any case I won't forget it anytime soon.

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 ****

I would not categorize the films of Brian De Palma as being overly clever, witty, or even all that funny (attempts to be so usually just end up being cheesy). However, this early effort was all of the above, minus the cheese. Robert De Niro and Jennifer Salt are both fine, and there are numerous smaller roles whose performers all hit just the right notes in their delivery. The opening scene with Charles Durning as a slumlord trying to rent out a dilapidated apartment to De Niro is particularly amusing.

There is also a potent (and, it must be said, somewhat misguided) radicalism to the film (which would not really reappear in De Palma's work until perhaps The Untouchables or, if not there, then certainly Casualties of War). De Niro's filmography after this work does not even come close to matching the political and social consciousness of Hi, Mom!, not even in The Deer Hunter which, like so much of De Niro's work, is mainly concerned with the personal and the psychological.

Unfortunately, it is, as mentioned, a terribly misguided radicalism obsessed with race and the pitting of the middle and upper-middle class against the poor. Stopping people as they come off the subway in New York City and demanding to know if this or that person knows what it's like to be Black in America is a stupid question to ask in the first place, and yelling at a small business owner about how he's a cog in the machine of capitalism seems similarly wrongheaded (these people are victims of the beast of capitalism too in so far as they are just trying to make a living under a rotten system like everyone else). It is hard to say sometimes whether De Palma is for or against the anti-White racism of the "Be Black Baby" theater troupe (a cinema verite play put on by the troupe involves rape and murder, so it's unlikely he is fully committed to their politics), but a healthy alternative isn't presented either.

Anyway, I would recommend checking this out. For a low budget film from 1970, the quality of the picture and sound is remarkably good.

I'm sure it all seemed like a good idea at the time.

OK, it isn't bad. No, really. But it IS dated.

DePalma's narrative has not improved over time actually. So it's a good thing his technique has. But fans of him or the future 'Taxi Driver' should see this on principle.

You've got anti-racist rhetoric here. (Led by a young, bearded Gerrit Graham) Peeping tom and porno fantasies. And a seemingly confused Viet Nam vet. And this was 5 years BEFORE Travis Bickle.

Sometimes it looked like this was 3 or 4 shorts blended into a film. The rawness is OK, but the haphazard timing can be infuriating at times.

A continuation of 'Greetings' also by DePalma and with DeNiro. Give 'em some credit. They had to start somewhere.

I was interested in seeing "Hi, Mom" for a few reasons. One, was because of an early Brian De Palma comedy film with early appearance of Robert De Niro. Two, because the trailer to the film looked very funny and strangely exciting. And Three, because I have seen this film on the video shelf for a while.

Back when I was young boy, I seen the film remember showing this to my parents. I wish I would gotten this years back. But I recently watched it online with an exciting feeling that this film was going to be good. And as it turned out, I loved it. However, while watching this, it seems oddly familiar. In my opinion, it looks like De Niro is acting like a Woody Allen character.

So it's about a young man just coming back from the Vietnam. And moving into an abandoned apartment across the street, to discover the people in the other apartments across the street. So he meets and gets in touch with a young lady across the street while almost being a 'peeping tom', he tries to figure out information about her. While tries setting his camera up for the people lots of terrible/hilarious things happen.

Also later on he discovers an audition for a live theater experience called "Be Black Baby" which is a story about white people going to experience what it is like to be a Negro. This segment is actually a frightening and almost as realistic as i've ever seen in a film. But before the segment begins and De Niro auditions for the role as a police officer, it was my favorite/humorous scene where he talks to a mop and ladder. "What did you say to me? Make love, not war? Hey listen I make love very well!"

So there's lots of information from the film. I would check it out if not seen yet. I believe a lot of people do not enjoy this film very much, despite all the racial elements in it, and stuff like that. But I would say that there was really nothing wrong with this film. It's a bright comedy from the 70's, and features the early career of Robert De Niro, and did a very well job as the character Jon Rubin. I enjoyed it! And I would like to say one thing...Hi, Mom!

Before he strode confidently into Hitchcock territory, filmmaker Brian De Palma began his career in the late 1960s and early 1970s with a series of anti-authority satires. Hi, Mom! (1970) wasn't quite as controversial as its X-rated predecessor, Greetings (1968), but it still has a bite, even today.

Robert DeNiro stars as Jon Rubin, a Vietnam vet looking to find his place in America. He gets the idea of making porno films with a voyeuristic quality, filming the residents of a neighboring apartment building from his window. To get quicker results, he even seduces one woman and tries to perform for the camera, set on a timer. He also auditions for a role in a play entitled "Be Black Baby," in which the white spectators are humiliated by black performers.

The film goes off on many tangents, using black-and-white footage to capture seemingly spontaneous reactions of passersby, but it never loses its obsession with voyeurism and the power of the camera. In many ways, this rambunctious mess gets closer to De Palma's dark heart than many of his later, more artistically successful works. Charles Durning appears in an early role as a slum landlord.

The second bizarre hippy satire from a young Brian DePalma (the first being Greetings), and featuring a remarkably spontaneous Robert DeNiro as a young Viet Nam vet new in the city and looking for work. The film (while noticeably dated), is practically an act of radicalism in itself as DeNiro boyishly tries to seduce his neighbors while simultaneously filming the act from his apartment to turn it into a work of explosive pornography. DePalma is clever here; he manages to transform the neighboring windows into fixed frames reminiscent of Hitchcock's Rear Window. Once a failure, DeNiro performs as a reactionary police officer in an all African American theater troupe's educational TV program, in which blacks offer liberal whites the opportunity to experience African Americanism as they beat and rape them in white-face; this sequence is particularly strange and not all together funny until DeNiro arrives as the cop. And finally, he transforms himself once again into a guerrilla revolutionary, bombing Laundromats and disguising himself as a bourgeois salesman. This final section is probably the most enjoyable and improvised, though it contains none of the creativity of the first section. The film is interesting if for nothing else, because one gets to witness DePalma and DeNiro stylistically severed from their current work. However, the film seems to try to satirize everything in our society, when in fact it comes across as though it has satirized nothing.

In this very late 60's irreverent, almost anarchic low-budget film, Brian De Palma defines more of his strange, given Hitchcock-like fascination of voyeurism, and attacks the issues of the day. The most prominent of which, both cringe-inducing and just plain funny, is when he focuses on the black-power movement (a black woman handing out fliers asking white people 'do you know what it's like to be black'), which is something that could only work for that time and place, not before or now.

But one of the key things to the interest in the film is 27 year old Robert De Niro (not his first or last film with the director), who plays this character who sits in a room looking out through his telescope at women in their rooms, setting up phony deals, and in the end basically throwing bombs. Those who have said that De Niro can't act and just is himself in every movie should see this movie, if only out of some minor curiosity. A couple of times in the film it's actually not funny, as when there's a disturbance in a black-power meeting (filmed in a grainer, rougher style than the rest of the film).

In the end it's capped off with a rambling monologue in an interview that tops De Niro's in King of Comedy. It's pretty obvious where De Palma's career would go after this, into slightly more mainstream Hollywood territory, but all of his trademarks are here; the dark, almost nail-biting comedy, the perfectly timed style of voyeurism, and interesting usage of locals. Think if De Palma and De Niro did a Monty Python film, only even more low-budget and in its New York way just as off-the-hinges, and you got Hi, Mom! It also contains an eccentric and funny soundtrack.

Another early De Palma satire this time around has a more focused narrative with Robert De Niro as its main protagonist, better, if not always good humor and some imaginative sequences.

Seems everyone in this film is channeling Woody Allen. They stammer and pause and stammer some more. Only for REALLY die-hard DeNero fans! It tries to appear as edgy and artistic - but it comes off as looking like a very, very low budget film made by college students. The most often used word in the whole film is "hum". The film does peg the atmosphere of the late sixties/early seventies though. If you like films where people are CONSTANTLY talking over each other, horrible lighting (even if it is for "art's sake"), and makes you feel like you are sitting in on a lame political meeting, then you might like this - but you need to be really bored. I found this CD in the dollar bin and now I know why.

This movie has the distinction of being too hip even for the hippest period in American movies. (It wasn't the underground hit it deserved to be.) Full of guerrilla street theater and put-ons, and featuring a very young Robert De Niro going through lighting-fast comedy routines, it's an amazing document of the era. Remarkable the number of great actors De Palma discovered--with De Niro at the top of the list.

Before any of his famous roles, Robert DeNiro starred here as Vietnam vet Jon Rubin, filming the activities of a black militant group in New York. In a way, "Hi, Mom!" almost seems like the sort of movie that they just made for fun (granted, it wasn't a big-budget studio movie). Still, something about a black militant group doesn't seem like the sort of thing that a person would do just for fun. A previous reviewer noted that this movie seemed like an homage to "Rear Window". Maybe so, given the voyeurism factor, but it seemed to me that it was mostly its own idea. All in all, a pretty interesting start for Brian DePalma.

After this one, DePalma made some great movies early on ("The Phantom of the Paradise", "Carrie", "Dressed to Kill", "Blowout"). "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Carlito's Way" were still good. With "Mission: Impossible", he was starting to get Hollywood, and "Snake Eyes" made it look like he had completely degenerated. I can only hope that "The Black Dahlia" is better.

This is definitely one weird movie, to understand,, taking place in Greenwich Village on the east side of Manhattan, in the 70's , it starts off with a guy trying to make a small budget porno, using nothing but a telescope, and a cheap camera. then the movie starts to go in a different direction. It goes into black power, and what it's like to be black in New York. then towards the end the movie goes yet in a different direction towards vigilanteism. this movie is not for the faint of heart or youngsters, sometimes in places this movie is very hard to watch specially the beginning,, it takes you into the mind of a Vietnam Vet, who comes back to Manhattan and rents out a cheap apartment, but the movie also grips you and doesn't want to let you go in the middle , where the have the Baby Be Black segment,, which is also hard to watch, but very interesting , nonetheless,, this was very early Deniro, when he was really young.. overall it was okay,, takes sometime to get use to.