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1/23/2022

Hi, Mom! (1970) - Youthful, edgy De Palma/De Niro career-starting nonsense

 

 

Iconic American painting Whistler's Mother (1871) has been manipulated to hold a semi-automatic rifle on this playful, hype-filled poster for Brian De Palma's Hi, Mom!

Vietnam veteran Jon Rubin has an idea to become an adult filmmaker by shooting a film of his New York neighbors.

 

Hi, Mom! is written and directed by great New Jerseyite filmmaker Brian De Palma (Murder à la Mod (1968)), with Charles Hirsch (Greetings (1968)) contributing story elements.

It is a very uneven and youthful New-Yorker flick that's also enormously typical of the time in which it was made. It flutters this way and that with pompous opinions delivered without consequences. 

The scenes of Robert De Niro (Ronin (1998)) as a minute-dictated seductor and Jennifer Salt (Family (1978, TV-series)) as easy prey are amusing. De Niro empathetically acts out all the odd roles that he's given in the sprawling film, which ends with a black experimental theater troupe who become violent as a provocation. Hi, Mom! may well be simultaneously interesting and bad.

 

Related posts:

Brian De Palma: Mission to Mars (2000) - De Palma's awful space turkey 

Carlito's Way (1993) - De Palma's best gangster movie

The Fury (1978) - De Palma's telekinetic powers run amuck! 
Carrie (1976) or, Don't Bully the Strange Girl!  

 



Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

 

Cost: Reportedly 120k $

Box office: Unknown

= Uncertain

[Hi, Mom! was released 27 April (New York) and runs 87 minutes. De Niro reprises his Jon Rubin character from De Palma's Greetings (1968) in the film. Shooting took place in New York. Whether the film ever screened outside of New York originally is unknown. De Palma returned with Get to Know Your Rabbit (172). De Niro returned in Jennifer on My Mind (1971). Hi, Mom! is fresh at 73 % with a 6.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]


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