Watch Hi, Mom! For Free

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

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.

Very strange and satirical look at a Vietnam vet (Robert DeNiro) and how he tries to get a job after being discharged. First he's a peeping tom--photographing neighbors without their knowledge. He also gets involved with one--Julie Bishop (Jennifer Salt). Then he joins a black theatrical group who basically rob all the white liberals who attend their plays! THEN he becomes an urban guerrilla willing to blow up buildings.As you can see this is not for all tastes. The humor is sharp, absurd, no holds barred and VERY funny. This movie takes aims at many targets (blacks, whites, race relations, politics, liberals) and goes after them full force. This may be a little strong for some people (the movie almost got an X rating for nudity) but I loved it. There's a particularly funny episode with blacks questioning white people on the street if they know what it's like to be black.DeNiro is a wonder---he's SO young and already talented. He plays every sequence perfectly. His bits with Allen Garfield are hysterical--the banter between them goes nonstop. DePalma already shows his directorial talents using split screen (in the opening credits) and having almost all of DeNiro's adventures shown through a video camera. Salt is sort of annoying--but she's supposed to be.A VERY 1970s comedy. Lots of the opinions and situations here just don't happen anymore but still worth seeing. Who ever knew that Brian DePalma could do a comedy? ("Bonfire of the Vanities" doesn't count--that was unintentionally funny). I give this an 8.

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 saw Hi, Mom! under the title Blue Manhattan a few years ago. I think it can be purchased on VHS under its correct title (Columbia Classics series). If you're a fan of DePalma you can't neglect this film, it goes from incredibly funny (DeNiro auditions as a cop), to pretty terrifying (the whole "Be Black Baby" sequence in the stairwell). It's an uneven, zany kind of a film but it's definitely worth seeking out for the aforementioned scenes (not to mention Gerrit Graham and Allen Garfield who are both quite good in this film). It's amazing really that much of "Hi, MOM!" and "Greetings" retains a fresh go-for-broke feel that is missing from later DePalma films--despite their larger budgets, better scripts (or not), and more polished directorial skill.