Desertman84 Hi, Mom! is a black comedy film wherein Robert De Niro reprises his role of Jon Rubin in one of his earlier films,Greetings.Allen Garfield,Jennifer Salt,Lara Parker,Paul Bartel,Charles Durning and Gerrit Graham co-stars with De Niro.Meanwhile,Brian De Palma is at helm in one of his first films.Jon Rubin is a Vietnam War veteran who aspires to become a high class pornographer.He sets up his apartment across from the office of Joe Banner to impress the erotic filmmaker with his talent. Jon finds his efforts to film the amorous adventures hampered by a sequence of bad luck, and eventually takes a job as a actor portraying a policeman. Banner takes Jon under his wing to give the young photographer the benefit of his experience. They contend with production delays when urban guerillas and black militants launch their protest. By today's standards,one would still appreciate this movie especially during the early years of porn.Also,we get to see institutions in the industry in De Niro and De Palma.Overall,it would still appreciated by viewers today due to the "Peeping Tom" theme in the film.

Boba_Fett1138 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.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

operez3 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.

latherzap An odd, cynical movie. And it puts a smile on my face.A young De Niro plays Jon Rubin, a single guy that wants to become a porn director. He's been spying on the all the neighbors in the local apartment building, and hatches a plan to make voyeur porn, filming the unwitting neighbors. Some smart dialogue and slightly corny humor develop, and a great cast makes it work wonderfully. One of the neighbors is a bearded young white fellow whose liberal politics are in overdrive. He's producing a play called "Be Black, Baby". The flyers promoting the show feature photos he's taken of white folks painted black. Seeing him pose for the camera, you can see that he is proud and excited- apparently he thinks that covering himself in black paint will immediately enable him to completely understand the plight of African Americans. And perhaps help purge whatever latent racism he has within. Nice goals, but a useless strategy. Cracks me up.Anyway, De Niro's porn career doesn't take off. He ends up trading in his camera for, embarrassingly, a television. And he ends up auditioning for Be Black Baby, playing the role of a cop. The play is a "guerrilla theatre" production, with actors interacting with audience, and designed to help races identify with one another. A bit slow at times, but it's pretty intense and realistic.The end of the play (now being shown on a television that Rubin is watching) shows the theatre troupe storming a middle class apartment complex, a flaccid attempt to spark revolution. The middle class tenants defeat the revolutionaries. Rubin can't take it, pulls out his gun, and fires at the television! His whole existence had been swallowed up by activism, and so he can't handle its failure.Flash to what is presumably several years later, and Rubin is now married with a kid on the way. His wife and he have inane conversations about his job and the color of the washing machine. His passionate idealism was fleeting, inevitably replaced by his surrender to the rat race.But then Rubin lights dynamite in his apartment complex, killing many people including his wife. People interviewed outside the wreckage aren't that disturbed, one man lamenting that his wallet was in there. And Rubin approaches the news camera because he wants to say hello to his mother.My description may make this sound like a dark movie, but (except for the play sequence) it really is a fun offbeat comedy. I even loved the music. Check it out!