I was interested in seeing "Hi, Mom" for a few reasons. One, was because of an early Brian De Palma comedy film with early appearance of Robert De Niro. Two, because the trailer to the film looked very funny and strangely exciting. And Three, because I have seen this film on the video shelf for a while.Back when I was young boy, I seen the film remember showing this to my parents. I wish I would gotten this years back. But I recently watched it online with an exciting feeling that this film was going to be good. And as it turned out, I loved it. However, while watching this, it seems oddly familiar. In my opinion, it looks like De Niro is acting like a Woody Allen character.So it's about a young man just coming back from the Vietnam. And moving into an abandoned apartment across the street, to discover the people in the other apartments across the street. So he meets and gets in touch with a young lady across the street while almost being a 'peeping tom', he tries to figure out information about her. While tries setting his camera up for the people lots of terrible/hilarious things happen.Also later on he discovers an audition for a live theater experience called "Be Black Baby" which is a story about white people going to experience what it is like to be a Negro. This segment is actually a frightening and almost as realistic as i've ever seen in a film. But before the segment begins and De Niro auditions for the role as a police officer, it was my favorite/humorous scene where he talks to a mop and ladder. "What did you say to me? Make love, not war? Hey listen I make love very well!" So there's lots of information from the film. I would check it out if not seen yet. I believe a lot of people do not enjoy this film very much, despite all the racial elements in it, and stuff like that. But I would say that there was really nothing wrong with this film. It's a bright comedy from the 70's, and features the early career of Robert De Niro, and did a very well job as the character Jon Rubin. I enjoyed it! And I would like to say one thing...Hi, Mom!

Seems everyone in this film is channeling Woody Allen. They stammer and pause and stammer some more. Only for REALLY die-hard DeNero fans! It tries to appear as edgy and artistic - but it comes off as looking like a very, very low budget film made by college students. The most often used word in the whole film is "hum". The film does peg the atmosphere of the late sixties/early seventies though. If you like films where people are CONSTANTLY talking over each other, horrible lighting (even if it is for "art's sake"), and makes you feel like you are sitting in on a lame political meeting, then you might like this - but you need to be really bored. I found this CD in the dollar bin and now I know why.

Before any of his famous roles, Robert DeNiro starred here as Vietnam vet Jon Rubin, filming the activities of a black militant group in New York. In a way, "Hi, Mom!" almost seems like the sort of movie that they just made for fun (granted, it wasn't a big-budget studio movie). Still, something about a black militant group doesn't seem like the sort of thing that a person would do just for fun. A previous reviewer noted that this movie seemed like an homage to "Rear Window". Maybe so, given the voyeurism factor, but it seemed to me that it was mostly its own idea. All in all, a pretty interesting start for Brian DePalma.After this one, DePalma made some great movies early on ("The Phantom of the Paradise", "Carrie", "Dressed to Kill", "Blowout"). "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "Carlito's Way" were still good. With "Mission: Impossible", he was starting to get Hollywood, and "Snake Eyes" made it look like he had completely degenerated. I can only hope that "The Black Dahlia" is better.

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.