Customer Reviews

Hi Mom [VHS]

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Robert De Niro has played many odd ball characters in his day and perhaps none more so than Jon Rubin, in Brian De Palma's Hi,Mom! The movie begins with De Niro renting a run down apartment in the city where he can begin his new career. This career, he has decided, will be in the adult film industy. He tries to convinces a smut producer to give him a budget to film his neighbors in the buiding across from him. Eventually, he agrees so using a telephotolens De Niro begins recording their every move. Unfortunatly his targets(who have no idea they are being watched) are not very interesting. So De Niro begins to date a girl in the building he has noticed is lonely in an attempt to spice up his video. However, this does not pan out and De Niro's porn career is over. He turns his camera in for a television. This leads him to take a role in a play called Be Black Baby playing a police officer. It is being put on by some black radicals to illustrate to white people what it would be like to be black in contemperary America. The play is shocking and probably the most interesting part of the film. After the play is over De Niro returns to the girl from the building across from him and the movie ends in a melodramatic and bizarre fasion. This movie is definatly worth watching. This film put Brian De Palma on the map, and De Niro shows flashes of the brilliance that in years to come would create so many classic characters.

I saw both "Greetings" and "Hi, Mom!" back in the early 1970s at a college art theater, which was well before director Brian De Palma and actor Robert De Niro became big names. "Greetings" was De Palma's 1968 anti-war movie and "Hi, Mom!" was sort of intended as a sequel of sorts. In this 1970 film De Niro plays John Rubin, a Vietnam vet who returns from the war to settle in Greenwich Village. His big idea is to film the people in the apartment across the street and to sell Pepping Tom type films (where you even have to look through a the little windows in a little brick front to get the correct experience). Eventually John's obsession with making films gets him involved with a radical "Black Power" group. This results in two unforgettable sequences, the first involving what we would not call a Yuppie audience being subjected to urban guerrilla theater in the play "Be Black, Baby," and the second an act of urban terrorism that gives Jon a chance to say the film's title while smiling into a camera.

De Palma is clearly exploring the idea of breaking the barrier between actors and audience in the act of performance. I can appreciate this idea because every time I see theater in the round I keep watching the audience watching the play instead of just watching the play. Pay attention to De Palma's use of the split screen to explore the dual perspectives and get the audience watching the movie involved more involved in the equation as well. Repeatedly, it all comes down to point of view, meaning the point of view of the camera. This idea is reinforced by Jon, for whom life is not real unless it is on camera, a point most notably made in his sexual encounter with Judy (Jennifer Salt).

However, the most powerful part of this film is the "Be Black, Baby" sequences, and this is where you either find this film totally brilliant or grossly offensive. Throughout "Hi, Mom!" De Palma and De Niro have made the viewers party to Jon's voyeurism, albeit in more subtle ways than splatter flicks that let the audience see through the killer's eyes. Having persuaded (coerced?) us into this perspective, De Palma makes us pay for it in a most brutal manner. If you cannot appreciate the payoff of this sequence, and that could well be most of the people who bother to watch this film, then you are not going to be able to appreciate this film. But at the very least you should be able to understand not only what De Palma is doing, but why.

After that point the film section of the film seems quite anticlimactic. De Palma is trying to take his argument to the next level, but having been blown away by "Be Black, Baby," there is no way for the director and actor to top that moment. "Hi, Mom!" is a provocative film that provided me with one of the most memorable experiences in a movie theater that I have ever had. Watching this film again, this time knowing where De Palma and De Niro were taking me, really made me appreciate the purpose behind that powerful moment. Of course from the vantage point of today it is rather startling to compare this rather raw film with the slick Hollywood productions for which De Palma is best known, but this film is so powerful it is hard not to consider it his best work.

The most overlooked movie of the 1970's. Probably one of DePalma's best efforts. Also, a great example of DeNiro's early acting range. Funny, terrifying, brilliant. A great dissection of race issues, voyeurism, war, random violence, the family, and gender relations as well as a terrific homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window...

This movie is so crazy. Hi, Mom asks a great deal from the viewer, and offers little in return. It includes frequent tonal shifts, abrupt changes in generic gear. It begins as an urban farce, transforms into slightly meditative romantic comedy, then, by turns, social satire, and domestic comedy. A viewer could be forgiven for feeling slightly whip-lashed by the film's violent conclusion.

Robert De Niro stars (his third De Palma movie) as a Vietnam vet who becomes obsessed with 16mm filmmaking as a way of making social connections and studying his society. He focuses on a Greenwich Village housing development. Politics become enmeshed with sex when De Niro courts Jennifer Salt (later star of De Palma's "Sisters" ) as a means of gaining access to the apartment building, a symbol of establishment and social conformity.

Hi, Mom! proves to be prescient about the uses of media to extend vision into other people's lives and communicate cultural frustration. Although the methods have changed from film to video, the same curiosity and motivation exist. There's also the same potential to deceive public perception; that's the idea behind De Palma's satire of public TV--then called educational television.

De Palma's inventiveness is highlighted in a sequence titled "Be Black Baby," where racial tension, media hypocrisy and revolutionary politics collide. This segment just kill me because it turned out to the sharpest, funniest, most observant, and most disturbing out of the entire film. No movie or TV sketch since has been as funny or powerful about American social hypocrisy. Its details are too good to give away. To see it is to never forget it. The title, incidentally, refers to the common subversion of FCC rules that most people, excited about their 15 minutes of fame, can't help flouting. This movie announced the beginning of a major film sensibility and today it looks smarter and funnier than any current movie that passes for social comedy. Not an ordinary film of entertainment but very interesting. I would highly recommend this to those who wants to see the early years of Bobby DeNiro and Brain DePalma.

I've been looking for this movie forever , I saw it like 5 or 6 years ago on tv and I got completely hooked on it,It was really impresive, it may seem kind of arty nowadays but it has segments witch you'll see later in taxi driver, there is also a very unpleaseant scene which involves some kind of street theatre ..., I definetely recommend this movie to Brian de Palma aficionados and lovers of strong performances.

OK, so you know, there was a time that Brian DePalma made films that didn't resemble Hitchcock fare. Storywise and style-wise. He was more of an avant-garde/guerrilla style filmmaker that made very daring, audacious films with very powerful statements (well, like his films still do to this day, but with more of that 'Hitchcock' flare). No, this leans more toward the Antonioni/Lelouch/Godard style of filmmaking.

And, so people will know, it was DePalma that discovered Robert DeNiro, NOT Martin Scorcese! DePalma cast a very young, unkown DeNiro in three of his first films, "The Wedding Party", "Greetings", and this one (which is a sequel to "Greetings" in a way). The 1960's were a great era for films! Especially the up-and-coming DePalma...This also features Jennifer Salt (also in DePalma's "The Wedding Party", "Greetings", and "Sisters"), Charles Durning (also in DePalma's "Sisters" and "The Fury"), Rutanya Alda (also in DePalma's "The Fury"), and Gerrit Graham (also in DePalma's "Greetings", "Phantom of the Paradise", and "Home Movies").

This is a very powerful, hard-hitting revolutionary film that deals with some very tough issues of the day that are still relevant today. Things like war, racism, obsession, paranoia, and equality among the Human race...And, yes, voyeurism! DePalma deals with voyeurism in the best possible sense than any other film director in the business. First, he makes us want to watch, then makes us almost afraid to turn away, but also afraid to keep watching, then he makes us feel disgusted for even wanting to watch. Yes, he so effectively exposes the deep sick desire that we as a people share in common: We love to be witnesses to any kind of event; spectators to the entertainment.

Whether it's television, film, and/or live events, we just can't help but watch. And, if asked to participate, well, that is just a crime! And, that, my friends, is the crime that DePalma commits so many times with his brilliant films! That is why he so effectively splits his audiences down the middle: He asks for participation from his audience...Don't just sit there like a nimbacile, actually try to 'solve' something, try to find the solution to the problem, try to, well, quit just letting your life pass you by as you just sit there as a witness to your own drama. Participate in Life!

For anyone who hasn't had the pleasure of seeing this film, be prepared to be shocked out of your seats by some very hard-hitting subjects, mainly that of racism in this country. The "Be Black, Baby" sequence is possibly one of the most daring, straight-forward approaches to dealing with this subject ever committed to film. Disturbing, hilarious, jolting, and very dramatic, this film turns itself inside out, exposing and exploring the art of filmmaking in and of itself. And, gives a whole new meaning to 'guerilla terrorism'!

Oh, this also pokes fun at the whole porn industry, something that Brian would continue to do many years later with his classic psychological erotic thriller "Body Double".

In the meantime, don't rent from slumlords, don't take a 'job' from someone you meet in a porn theater, don't fight in a senseless war, and, for God sakes, don't hate your neighbor just because their skin is a different color than yours! Then, maybe you can get on TV and say..."Hi, Mom!"....

Thank you! ;-)

I loved it! This film is not only funny but also describes a serious issue like racism in a realistic way. And of course De Niro's performance! Incredibly powerful, especially when he played the police officer. This is definitely worth watching.

Hi Mom! showcases the awesome talent of Robert De Niro when he was rather young in this film directed by Brian De Palma. In a way that I can't quite verbalize, the film somehow gains its strength from the very fact that there is a side dish of surrealism mixed in with the main plot; and that creativity is something I greatly admire. The acting is wonderful and they couldn't have cast the actors any better; everyone's acting is great. The cinematography works well and the choreography shines in crowd scenes as well as through the rest of the film. The action moves along at a very good pace and I was never once bored; this film became more and more interesting, pulling me in further and further as the film progressed.

When the film starts, we quickly meet young aspiring "peep art" film maker John Rubin (Robert De Niro). John moves into a very shabby apartment across from a New York City high-rise building to surreptitiously film the romantic escapades and other goings on of the people living across the lot using a zoom lens from his boss/partner, Joe Banner (Allen Garfield). Soon John is able to film practically everyone across the lot using his camera and new lens; and wow, how he gets footage! John also notices that a pretty young woman, Judy Bishop (Jennifer Salt), is quite single and available; and after an elaborate ruse he worms his way into her life.

Meanwhile, things don't go exactly as planned with John's film project--while he was trying to film him and Judy alone together with just the camera back in his apartment, the camera tilts too low and films someone else who Joe Banner isn't interested in, to say the least. Banner gets rid of John and John must do something else to make a few bucks. John joins an extremist acting troupe as he continues his romance with Judy; and that's when you should look for the extended and remarkably powerful scene of their "show" entitled Be Black, Baby. Talk about intense! De Niro is scarcely in this very long extended scene but he does his part well and the other actors give a performance you won't easily forget. Some people say that this is the point where the film goes too far away from the opening plot but I think it works well. It's surrealistic and strong.

Of course, from here the plot can go anywhere; and it certainly takes a few twists and turns that leave me thinking about this film. It tackles not just racial issues but also the war in Vietnam with other themes winding their way in and out of the movie; and it's all very impressive. In addition, look for Charles Durning to do a great cameo as a building superintendent; and Gerrit Graham does a wonderful job of playing Gerrit Wood, a film student who is also connected to the radical theater troupe.

The DVD comes with few extras; on one side you get the movie in widescreen format and the other side has it in fullscreen format. There's the theatrical trailer but that's about it; I would have loved some commentary but unfortunately it's not there.

Hi Mom! is a must-have for any fan of Robert De Niro or the other actors in this film. If you like artistic films with social commentary that actually means something and stimulates your brain, add this film to your collection.

I saw "Hi, Mom!" listed in a book entitled "The New York Times Guide to the Best 1000 Movies ever Made". I have made it a point to watch those films whenever possible which is why I rented "Hi, Mom!" last night. What a waste of time that was. Robert de Niro is the "star" of this film and his preformance is a mixed bag. I would rate it on par with his acting in "Rocky and Bulwinkle".

The movie starts out awkwardly as it seems to be an R-rated movie about the porn industry. It veers away from that into something entirely different as it seems to want to shock the audience into empathy. It stumbles to the end attempting to expand its' simplistic portrayal of American stereotypes. Maybe this movie is supposed to be "black humor"; that genre that shames you into thinking a lousy movie is actually a work of art (when the truth is that your first impression was the correct assessment). In my opinion, the only impressive bit of acting in this movie was that of the porn distributor.

This film DID remind me of a 70's film called "Kentucky Fried Movie". That movie veered off in different directions as well but it had the advantage of actually being funny. I'm actually rather embarassed to admit that I watched "Hi, Mom!". Lets just put this review in the category of a public service. Don't say I didn't warn you!

I have watched this film twice now and I still don't understand it any better. At times it is quite funny other times extremely unsettling and hard to watch. What do you expect from star Robert De Niro and director Brian De Palma? Pretty much all of their films fall into that category: darkly humorous one moment deeply disturbing the next. This film is a sequel to the two's earlier collaboration Greetings which I never saw. Maybe that film can shed some light on this one. De Niro stars as John Rubin. When we first meet him he is buying an extremely run down apartment with the intentions of filming his neighbors in the housing project across from him. He plans to turn his findings into "erotic art". He tries to sell the idea to a porn king who initially isn't having it but fronts him the cash anyway. Automatically you have the makings of a De Palma homage to Rear Window. The people across the way include a revolutionary (the brilliant Gerrit Graham) and a lonely woman (Jennifer Salt) who Rubin starts to romance. Even that is not what it seems since we learn that Rubin doesn't actually love her he is just using her to star in one of his erotic art movies. What makes this film challenging is the second story, second film really, that De Palma tells which is entitled Be Black Baby. The Graham character is putting on a play that is aimed at white people to help them understand what it is really like to be black in America. He and a handful of African Americans ambush white people on the streets and get in their faces challenging them. The first scene starts off a bit uncomfortable but also dangerously funny. Where it goes from there just gets extremely uncomfortable and violent. I won't give it away because it must be viewed without knowing what is happening to get the full impact. It is very unsettling and feels extremely real and it lasts for a good long time. You want to fast forward or turn it off but yet you don't because you are fascinated and that right there is the power of De Palma. This film is full of his camera mastery but like in his other films Body Double or Dressed to Kill it becomes too much to handle and you want it to end but you are so eager to see what he will do next. De Niro is absolutely riveting in this film, only his third. You get the feeling that much of this film was improvised and he does so thrillingly. He is very funny at times but then he transitions where you don't know what he is capable of doing next. It is a great film to see how even this early in their careers, about the third or fourth film for both of them, they were already the masters they would become. Certainly not a straight up comedy like it is advertised it is still a great underground film.