moonspinner55 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 ****

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.

MisterWhiplash 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.