Customer Reviews

Greetings

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

So this is what happened to a high-spirited, talented director who could in 1968 co-write, direct and edit this movie for $39,985 (I know I could of just rounded it out) yet 30 years later made Mission: Impossible? With this, his 3rd film, he was well entrenched in an underground style of low budget works with an element of humor and a vigour that was exciting in its own right, not for what it gorily displayed.

Depalma introduces us to three friends through a series of New York-based sketches that bear only tenuous relation to each other; if not for the film's intense forward velocity, all the raw materials would certainly fall apart. Paul (Jonathan Warden) is trying to dodge the draft while testing the waters of computer dating; Jon (Robert De Niro) is giving "amateur" filmmaking a shot; and Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) is a JFK conspiracy nut trying to ferret out the truth of the assassination. The three are introduced in a lengthy, bravura sequence where Lloyd and Jon provide increasingly ridiculous draft-dodging advice as they shift venues: from a clothing store to a zoo, a random apartment, a public bathroom and finally a bar. The first half-hour neatly captures a sense of early twenties aimlessness, where hanging out--wherever--is an end in itself; it's jovial and feels at times not unlike Godard's Band of Outsiders.

Even though the "Greetings" theme song, a jangly Byrdsian creation, quickly negates the gravity of the opening LBJ Vietnam clip, the war hangs heavily over the film. (Hearing a president speak in 1968 about fighting terror abroad to help secure the homeland gave me chills.) "I'm not saying you never had it so good, but that is the case isn't it?" says LBJ, and the three draft-concerned friends do their best to prove him right. The sight of a young mustachioed Robert De Niro gallivanting through Central Park and goosestepping through the Lower East Side trying to figure out just how great of an actor he might one day become should be enough to warm the heart of even the most hardened cinephile. And De Palma himself is no slouch here, taking time to skewer the art world, tenuous race relations, JFK conspiracy nuts, the dating scene, radical liberalism, and the city of New York's own innate pretensions. Paul manages to dodge the draft by playing gay, but Jon's not so lucky. His plan to pose as an extremist arch-conservative with bloodlust only rendered him more worthy of the military, forcing him to abandoned his burgeoning "Peepers and the Peep" avant-porn masterwork Even if the film loses a bit of steam mid-way through, Greetings' coup de grace comes in an obviously staged Vietnam by way of Long Island where a newsman hooks up with a rifleman on the front line--none other than Jon Rubin. In the course of the interview Jon captures a young Vietnamese girl, seats her in front of the news camera and begins restaging his "Peepers" film as De Palma intercuts footage from the original taken in a Manhattan bedroom, effectively thumbing his nose at his audience, and the political priorities of the day.

I thought the cast (at the time) were fresh and in tune with his anarchy. He uses the story of a draft-dodger with an ingenious line in excuses to present a portrait of late-60s society. Rough and ready compared with later films, but minus the cynicism and contempt of those glossy works.

This early effort by director Brian DePalma is a funny series of vignettes that touches on the various social issues of the late sixties. These issues include the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, computer dating, voyeurism,etc. This is definitely a low-budget affair and the film has some ragged edges but it is done with such verve that you choose to ignore it and go with the flow. The selling point is a featured role for a young Robert DeNiro and he is fine but this is more of an ensemble affair. This film is well worth checking out.

This is a great film, made by Brian De Palma with a very young De Niro. He plays a really interesting role that shows how talented this actor was already in 1968. I recommend it for all De Niro's fans.

Greetings may be slightly uneven in that some scenes and sequences work better than others, but overall it is an entertaining film with excellent acting by all. Brian De Palma both co-wrote and directed this film which takes place in New York City and uses its three principle characters to explore the themes of free love, the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination and amateur filmmaking of women slowly undressing by a would-be "peep artist." In addition, the cinematography and the choreography work well and the script is essentially well written although it could have been funnier in some places. It's probably best to regard this film as an early attempt by Brian De Palma to make a film with true meaning; De Palma was still something of a diamond in the rough at the time this was filmed and I think that accounts for the occasional raggedy edges of this picture.

When the film starts, we meet three young men--Paul (Jonathan Warden), Jon (a very young Robert De Niro) and Lloyd (Gerrit Graham in his film debut) in 1960s New York. They are desperate to get out of having to go to Vietnam; they want to romance women as much as possible; and one of them (Lloyd) has an incredible obsession with the Kennedy assassination. All of this generates some very interesting and usually good scenes and sequences all throughout the film. For example, Jon and Lloyd try everything to prepare Paul to appear as unfit for military service as possible to the point of actually giving him lessons in how to pretend he's the most flamboyant gay man who ever lived! At the same time Jon wants to make his own "peeping tom" movies of women undressing and just how he goes about this is actually very funny. The scene in which he gets a young lady to undress for "an intimate moment" at the end of a hard day at her job is more than worth the price of admission alone! It will make you laugh.

As I mentioned above, Lloyd has quite a fixation with the Kennedy assassination. There's a bedroom scene which is very tongue in cheek with Lloyd making marks on a woman's body to "prove" that the Warren Commission had whitewashed the entire inquiry of the assassination to intentionally mislead the public; and Lloyd's obsession gets played out in even more scenes as well.

The DVD itself doesn't come with any extras. It would be interesting to have a commentary by De Palma or De Niro as to what their thoughts are on this piece in retrospect; and maybe someday we'll get that in a re-release of this movie on DVD.

Overall, Greetings is a not quite perfect film primarily because a few scenes don't quite work well or fit in smoothly along the way; but overall it remains entertaining. I recommend this film for fans of the actors in it, especially Robert De Niro who proves he could act brilliantly even very early on in his career.

The early 1960's were a great era for films and filmmakers. Brian DePalma made a huge impression as a up-and-coming gonzo-guerilla-radical-rebellious-independant filmmaker. And, that was just with this one film, his 2nd feature.
Starring a very young, unknown Robert DeNiro, DePalma created a satirical farce that skewered practically everything society was dealing with at the time: Vietnam, draft dodging, racism, paranoia, the JFK conspiracy, Antonioni's "Blow Up", Hitchcock's "Rear Window", teenage angst, rebelliousness, young love/lust, voyeurism, and entertainment.
Telling this in the style of short stories, well, postcards, pasted together to tell one story, this is a very interesting, complex (yet simple) piece of film that is still fun and relevant today. Join Jon Rubin and his merry band of friends as they experience some really cool and off-the-wall things, from unrequieted love to trying to solve the JFK conspiracy. Funny as h*ll, and a blistering reflection of a more innocent time when America was in a uproarious upheaval state. Dizzying film styles and techniques, and with a very witty script help move this film along charged at a rate of very high velocity.
Highly recommended! Thanx! ;o)

Robert DeNiro is one of the greatest actors in film history, which is why "Greetings" made it to my viewing list. Unfortunately youthful exuberance cannot redeem this tasteless anti-Vietnam sketch comedy. The central story of the film involves three men in New York City who are trying to avoid the draft by any means possible, ethical or not. The film is offensive on almost every level, and features overt racism (particularly disparaging to the Chinese), a truly pathetic homosexual impersonation scheme ("You better use 'Nair'..."), an equally unappealing scheme to feign psychiatric disorders, a nauseating comedic treatment of the Kennedy assassination (seriously, could this get more tasteless?), and slimy voyeurism, just for starters.

The film wanders aimlessly and drags on forever while never engendering an ounce of sympathy for any of the characters: they are all equally loathsome. Along the way there are long, rambling tales about the conquests of various women that in no way furthers the plot (though it does pad the running time enormously), painful slapstick interludes, and numerous subplots that go nowhere. The film starts with a terrible theme song while the cast frolics in fast motion, much like a sequence from "The Monkees" only not as cleverly devised. (Jumping jacks in Central Park? Really?) The film definitely gets my vote for most unendurable and kazoo-intensive soundtrack in modern history (especially mind-numbing in the bookstore scene), and serves to support pablum like the pointless tap dancing-passport photo scene (don't ask); also enjoy the completely disjointed story of computer dating gone awry that (like many other distractions) does nothing to advance the plot of the film. The only conclusion to draw is that Brian DePalma discovered anti-plot shortly before making this drivel.

The long and embarrassing concluding scene of DeNiro as a soldier in Vietnam is an insult to those who actually served: a female Viet Cong guerilla-stripper is nether tasteful or funny, but why should the film start exploring either of those concepts at this point? The only thing this film accomplishes is making hippies look like self-indulgent, narcissistic idiots. I could not dislike or disrespect this film more.

After enjoying its loose sequel Hi, Mom!, I decided to give this one a try. This is basically just a scattershot series of sketches centering around its three main characters, and only a handful of them really stick. As one might guess, De Niro's scenes are definitely the most memorable, particularly a funny scene involving his attempt at an erotic photo shoot with a girl. The rest of the scenes just meander without producing very many laughs. Plus, the subject matter and style feel very dated, and not in a good way. Also, the amateurish quality makes it pretty clear that De Palma hadn't quite found his feet by this point yet. The follow-up Hi, Mom! is absolutely worth checking out though.

"Greetings" is an offbeat satire from a very young Brian De Palma starring an equally young Robert De Niro. The vignettes focus on three friends. First there is Jon Rubin (De Niro), an aspiring filmmaker who has the idea of creating "peep art." This would consist of filming "private moments," and then letting people view them through tiny windows, thereby re-creating the Peeping Tom experience (more of this in De Palma's much better 1970 film, "Hi, Mom!"). However, if you are expecting to see an amazing performance by one of the great actors of his generation in an early film, you are going to be disappointed. De Niro comes off as overly mannered and a bit forced in his performance, especially in comparison to his two co-stars. His best moment is off-screen as he talks a woman through going to bed for his peep art (she repeatedly forgets not to talk). But he is a lot better two years later and had a decent career, at least until he started making credit card commercials.

First there is Lloyd Clay (Gerrit Graham), a conspiracy nut so obsessed with the JFK assassination that a half-naked woman sleeping in his bed is just another opportunity to show that the paths indicated by the bullet holes do not match up (unless JFK was shot while standing on his head). Lloyd shares his deep, dark thoughts directly with the viewing audience as he argues vigorously to convince us he is right. But sometimes he finds people in the real world to assault with his blow-ups from the Zapruder film that reduce the assassination to a Rorschach test. Finally, we have Paul Gerald Shaw (Jonathan Warden), who would like to find the right girl. His problem is that he has his induction physical and going to Vietnam will really hurt his love life. Fortunately, Lloyd and Jon are fully of ideas as to how Paul can get the army to reject him, everything from pretending to be gay and coming on to the sergeant (Lloyd's idea) to volunteering to shoot not only the Vietcong but also any American troops of color (Jon's brainstorm).

There is no real narrative thread here, which is hardly a criticism because "Greetings" is more of an ancestor of "The Groove Tube," "Saturday Night Live," and "Second City TV" in the history of contemporary sketch comedy with a heavy satirical bent. The difference is that what De Palma and his friends come up with in "Greetings" is more experimental guerilla theater than really polished sketch comedy. But there is something compelling about its enthusiasm, which makes us forgive the filmmaker and his actors when things go on a bit too long. De Palma has admitted to being influenced by Godard and the French "Nouvelle Vague" cinema, which inspired going out on the street and trying to improvise scenes (only they did not have enough film to improvise, so they ended up rehearsing most of the film to save money). But even in this early work, De Palma is clearly into doing everything you can do with a movie camera (inter-titles, split-screen, slow-motion, fast-motion, etc.).

"Greetings" is a historical footnote in cinematic history inasmuch as it was the first film in the U.S. to be given an "X" rating (later changed to "R," which is what it would qualify today because of some of the shots of nude women). In terms of social history "Greetings" represents some of the counter-culture politics of the late 1960s. It had been almost thirty years since I first saw "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!" Back then they constituted part of my first real exposure to radical thought in terms of what was out there on the streets. If you see just one of these films, interested in how De Palma was cutting his teeth as a director before he made his name with "Carrie" and "Dressed to Kill," then "Hi, Mom!" is the choice (the "Black in America/Be Black Baby" bit is the must see segment of that satire). But if you are interested in De Palma's career or counter-culture comedy from the late 1960s, then check them both out.

During the last twenty-something years, Brian De Palma's films have featured themes of voyeurism and obsession, while the director himself has employed musical scores that resemble Bernard Hermann in the way they ratchet up suspense. In the service of dark, psychological thrillers, these flourishes have earned De Palma the distinction, or derision, of being an Alfred Hitchcock clone. This is an insinuation I have always felt was unfair.

Haven't we already seen what train wreck ensues when filmmakers simply ape Hitchcock's camera moves, which is what happened in Gus Van Sant's restaged "Psycho?" If that disaster proved anything, it's that cloning the technical aspects of an auteur does not alone guarantee success. The director must bring something of himself to the project; he cannot get away with simple plagiarizing.

What complicates matters is, the personal traits De Palma brings to his movies are the same ones Hitchcock brought. Both share a fear of women. They each made films featuring characters who become obsessed or paranoid. And in their heyday (the 40's and 50's for Hitchcock, the 80's for De Palma), both men pushed the boundaries of permissible violence and sexuality onscreen.

But De Palma also has a pretty strange sense of humor, which precedes his reputation even moreso than Hitchcock's did (maybe because Hitchcock's tended to be more subtle). In a movie like "Greetings," one of De Palma's earlier works, the bizarreness helps locate the film in the director's canon, despite the lack of a Hitchcock-style plot.

The movie opens with TV footage of President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking the American people during a speech, "Have you ever had it better than you do right now?" It's meant to be ironic, as the movie depicts a group of twenty-something New Yorkers who believe they are not living in the greatest era of their country's history. Paul (Jonathan Warden) worries about having to go to Vietnam; he has an interview at his neighborhood draft office coming up. His pals Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) and John (Robert De Niro, in his first credited movie performance) want to help him fail it, so they keep him awake for two straight days. That way, Paul can convince the Army psychologist he has insomnia, rendering him unfit to serve.

Lloyd, meanwhile, doesn't have to worry about being sent over to the `Nam. Any military official who spends five minutes talking to the lanky, wild-eyed JFK assassination aficionado would seek to have him committed. As for John, he seems confident he can fail the interview by convincing the recruiter of his involvement in a white-power militia group. After exhausting that plotline fairly early, John begins exploring his voyeuristic tendencies. He even starts to stalk unsuspecting women.

While the "peeper" portion may sound like familiar territory for the director, De Palma, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Hirsch, mostly plays that angle for laughs. John spends a lot of time following different women, but his compulsions usually lead to wacky hi-jinks, such as pretending to be an artist putting on a show called "Peepers and the Peeped." After convincing a shoplifter (Rutanya Alda) from the bookstore where he works that his faux show is for real, he brings her back to his apartment, and records footage of the woman performing what should be her pre-bed ritual.

The scene's humor derives from her horrendous acting, and the way she exaggerates her routine (Do most women wrap their stockings around their necks, then preen in front of their bedroom window...?). At the same time, the first-person perspective of the camera, representing John's p.o.v., and the sound of his voice manipulating the subject, make the sequence feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. But for the most part, De Niro, who would later achieve iconic status in "Mean Streets" and "Taxi Driver" gives a solid comedic turn.

De Niro's gift, which has served him well in countless, more serious roles, is the emotional investment he can put in every scene. When he finally shows up to the recruiter's office, looking and sounding the way B.D. from "Doonesbury" would in the same situation, his façade initially seems way out there. However, De Niro's genius is not playing the situation as comedy. On the contrary, he plays this junior jingoist as seriously as George C. Scott would later undertake George Patton. He inhabits the character, and I only wish Hirsch had scripted, and De Palma had filmed, the full interview which would have followed the introduction.

Graham and Warden do good work, too, embodying the mistrust that characterized the Vietnam War era, and the confusion that accompanied sexual liberation. Lloyd is obsessed with finding out the identities of the police officers who pulled up in front of the boarding house where Lee Harvey Oswald had a room. Supposedly, the cops honked their horns twice, then drove off. What was their relationship to one of history's most famous assassins? Will the unexpected appearance of someone claiming to be the son of the boarding house owner finally break the case "wide open...?"

Paul, meanwhile, tries to find love through computer dating. His amusing vignettes (each proceeded by a psychedelically purple title card) feature women who want to use Paul-for sex without intimacy, as surrogate father, as religious inductee-without providing him with what he really wants. What is Paul looking for? Not mere sexual release, evidently. Why else would he turn down the attractive, mildly hostile Bronx secretary, who accused him of just wanting to get into her pants, but left him a trail of bread crumbs to where she lay naked in the bedroom...?

Well, one obvious reason is to let Lloyd sleep with her instead. This allows for "Greetings'" most brilliant moment of morbid lunacy: a long, single take where Lloyd, addressing the camera directly, disputes the FBI's official ballistics report detailing President John F. Kennedy's assassination wounds. As Lloyd rants on and on about the discrepencies, he uses a magic marker to plot the impact of every bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. However, Lloyd plots this information on the naked, sleeping body of the woman he just had sex with.

Naturally, drawing on a nude bedfellow becomes trickier when said figure lies on her back, which Lloyd needs access to. Lloyd addresses this problem with the confidence of someone who has done this sort of manipulating before. Whenever he needs her to lift an arm, or turn over onto her stomach so he can figure out the angle that the bullet exited out of the president, he simply plants kisses on a strategic location. The slumbering body inevitably moves, and Lloyd can continue with his work.

"Greetings" has an improvised, madcap energy, which sustains the movie while Hirsch and De Palma flail about for a plot. Indeed, the first half feels particularly aimless, like a collection of interesting montages and trick shots in search of genuine purpose. Granted, the filmmakers could have intentionally structured the movie that way, in order to reflect the lonely, listless, stuck-in-a-rut feeling that pervaded the country during the late sixties. But, in reflecting artfully on a quagmire, Hirsch and De Palma may have created their own morass, one which modern audiences may not have the patience to slog through.

Luckily, the dual appeal of De Niro and De Palma is considerable. "Greetings" gradually focuses more of its attention on John, as his penchant for falling into absurd situations make him the poster boy for his time. Perhaps De Palma was struck by the intensity De Niro brought to the peeper. Or maybe he recognized a star being born before his eyes. Cinematic history, as well as a peerless list of classic roles, certainly vindicates De Palma's decision to spend more of the film's second half following John. As for the director himself, there are moments when his sense of playfulness comes to the forefront. Take, for example, the scene where John chats up the shoplifter. As he describes "Peepers and the Peeped," the camera slowly pulls back, and a woman can be seen undressing in her ground-level apartment window. It's the perfect peepshow.

A book on Hitchcock's films appears as a prop in Paul and Lloyd's apartment. But I thought I recognized more of the influence of Antonioni, if anyone, in the montage sequences that occur during many of Paul's couplings. Meanwhile, it's fascinating to see that, back in 1968, De Palma was already proficient with cinematic sleight-of-hand. Initially, when the shoplifter performs the act which earns her her assignation, other voices distract us, and events happen so fast we can't be sure what she did. Later on, however, when John meets her on the street, he mentions what happened. De Palma then cuts to the same clip; indeed, she shoplifted that book.

Throughout his career, De Palma has enjoyed leaving clues in plain sight. Then, as the mystery unfolds, he doubles back upon them. He encourages active audiences; he used sleight of hand in "Dressed to Kill" (1980), "Mission Impossible" (1996), as recently as "Femme Fatale" (2002). Perhaps Hitchcock also did the same trick in his time. But the thing to remember is De Palma used them in a genre Hitchcock wasn't particularly known for.

The early 1960's were a great era for films and filmmakers. Brian De Palma made a huge impression as a up-and-coming gonzo-guerilla-radical-rebellious-independent filmmaker. And, that was just with this one film, his 2nd feature.

Starring a very young, unknown Robert De Niro, De Palma created a satirical farce that skewered practically everything society was dealing with at the time: Vietnam, draft dodging, racism, paranoia, the JFK conspiracy, Antonioni's "Blow Up", Hitchcock's "Rear Window", teenage angst, rebelliousness, young love/lust, voyeurism, and entertainment.

This film was made before "Hi, Mom!". As a matter of fact, "Hi, Mom!" is a sequel of sorts, with De Niro again playing Jon Rubin, but in "Greetings", it's before he goes to Vietnam, and "Hi, Mom!" is after his return.

Telling this in the style of short stories, well, postcards, pasted together to tell one story, this is a very interesting, complex (yet simple) piece of film that is still fun and relevant today. Join Jon Rubin and his merry band of friends (including Gerritt Graham in his film debut) as they experience some really cool and off-the-wall things, from unrequieted love to trying to solve the JFK conspiracy. Funny as h*ll, and a blistering reflection of a more innocent time when America was in a uproarious upheaval state. Dizzying film styles and techniques, and with a very witty script help move this film along charged at a rate of very high velocity.

It's a stunning, beautiful piece of work. No conventional plot, just a wonderful anti-war parable. If you have never seen Antonioni's 1966 classic "Blow Up", then you really need to check that one out ASAP! It's a solid masterpiece of cinema, and this film parodies it in a lot of scenes. My favorite scene(s) falls somewhere between the middle and the end, when Jon is following the mysterious blonde, and the breathtaking shots of the park, and the stunning music in the soundtrack, so bittersweet and innocent, so 1960's, and SO hard to describe in mere words. The title song sounds a lot like The Byrds. Oh, and the whole bookstore sequence is hilarious!

I'm sure you'll love this if you're a fan of De Niro and/or De Palma. It's a super cool little film. This is very obscure but worth the hunt. Highly recommended! Thank you! ;o)