Reminding me in many ways of John Cassavetes very personal early film "Shadows", this early Brian DePalma film has to be seen to be believed. In fact, it takes the styles of many previous independent art house directors and modernizes it in a way that could not be copied. Part of the film is so realistic and frightening and even militant that you wonder if they gathered a bunch of strangers off the street and films them without them being aware that this was only part of a movie. Those sequences, part of the infamous "Be Black Baby" subplot, are shot incomplete documentary-style, making me interested in seeing an actual documentary on the making of this film.

It's real theater of the streets when a bunch of white people are utilized in what they think is experimental theater that turns out to be a little bit too realistic where they are made to be black and the black actors all of a sudden are white. Insinuations of robbery, rape and shootings are followed by the arrival of a white cop played by Robert De Niro, and it is all part of the performance art staged to make a point. The screams and shouts and crying all seem to real to be acted out, and it's probably one of the most bizarre sequences in a cult film ever, the one that can never be forgotten.

Repeating his role from the DePalma film 'Greetings", DeNiro what is a voyeur, moving into an apartment building on LaGuardia way where he sets up his camera to film neighbors across the street, becoming infatuated with the insecure Jennifer Salt whom he basically cons into going out on a date. Looking very funny in his curly wig, a somewhat thin Charles Durning is a hoot as the landlord. Daniel auditions for the role of the cop within the experimental play, and it's that sequence that really becomes the focal point especially after the three stars confront a variety of white people on the street to ask them if they know what it's like to be black in America.

The funniest element of that segment is people after they realize what they have just gone through, exhausted and still panicky but exhilarated carried out by single and seemingly enlightened, but the question is whether or not that will remain. It certainly should be explained what the title is referring to because you certainly never meet anybody's mom, but you do get a glimpse into what New York what it was like as far as its counterculture 50 years ago. The film is a little whack as far as retaining a linear story, situation with DeNiro and Salt basically dropped for much of the movie. To think that both De Niro and DePalma have gone on to legendary status after seeing their early films is a testament to the motivations that got them into the industry in the first place, and this is certainly a must for film students.

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.

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 ****