AFS Essential Cinema: HI, MOM! January 20, 2009

Playing the same character from GREETINGS, Robert De Niro’s unsuccessful draft-dodger returns from Vietnam to Greenwich Village, where he tries to break into the hard-core filmmaking business through the unwilling mentorship of a porno director played by Allen Garfield. A detour into underground New York theater provides the setup for the infamous “Be Black, Baby!” sequence, where white, upper-class theatergoers are mercilessly terrorized by a militant black theater group to better understand what it’s like on the other side of the racial divide. Ingredients like pungent satire, leering sexuality and disturbing violence are gleefully combined in this early De Palma recipe.

Official Website: http://www.austinfilm.org/film/hi_mom