Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Stephanie There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

moonspinner55 Nebbish teenager, with squabbling parents and a megalomaniacal older brother, is mentored by a professor at Now College to stop being invisible and become the star of his own life. Hot property Brian De Palma filmed this low-budget movie alongside his filmmaking students at Sarah Lawrence College, perhaps in an attempt to reconnect with his roots as an independent maker of revue comedies (if true, the film could surely use Robert De Niro and Allen Garfield to give it a lift). There's no wit or sting in the writing (credited to six people, working from De Palma's original treatment)--it's all just a lark, a flagging, in-jokey experiment. It might have been easier to watch had the exteriors not been so dark and the interiors so muddy; the picture is a visual insult. Nancy Allen is a plus as a tootsie who gets to know her rabbit, and Pino Donaggio contributed an eclectic score. * from ****

PimpinAinttEasy Dear Pino Donaggio,your great score was wasted on this awful home video film. Brian De Palma returns to his late 60s roots of making inventive socially conscious films. But the film is mostly boring rather than inventive or socially conscious. Your brilliant and freewheeling score is played throughout the film even when the music does not suit the scene at all. A young man who is "an extra in his own life" is encouraged by an acting coach - the Maestro (Kirk Douglas) to film scenes from his own life and the antics of his dysfunctional family. The family consists of his intellectual alpha-male brother and his beautiful fiancée (Karen Allen), womanizing doctor dad and suspicious mother. Shot on 16 mm, the film is completely unfunny and has none of the clever dialog, interesting characters or social commentary of De Palma's great late 60s output. There is a racist and morally repugnant police officer whose character, like the rest of the film is completely uninspired. Your score and the lovely Karen Allen helped me get through the film, Pino. Home Movies is to De Palma's Greetings what Raising Cain would be to Sisters.Best Regards, Pimpin.(5/10)

bkoganbing After two highly successful commercial ventures in Carrie and The Fury, Brian DePalma apparently decided he needed a little fun and frolic. So Home Movies was made using the talents of a lot of people who appeared in DePalma projects. Home movies is like a film casserole where a lot of his film students got to step to the plate and take their best shot. Roughly speaking the film centers around Keith Gordon the younger brother of Gerrit Graham. They are the sons of Vincent Gardenia a philandering doctor and Mary Davenport his clueless wife. Graham is set to marry former hooker Nancy Allen. He's rather full of himself and also a latently gay individual. But he's the eldest and chosen one and Gordon is the nerdy younger brother who spends his time filming some of the private moments of the family, a little cinema verite for his film professor Kirk Douglas.Watching Home Movies I got the impression I was not being let in on an inside joke. And I rather resented the situation.It all seemed like a colossal waste of time for all involved. The name players must have owed DePalma big time to appear here.

MisterWhiplash The bulk of the crew on Brian De Palma's Home Movies were his college students, but if you asked me where it looks it the most it's hard to say. De Palma decided to make it a challenge in as much that he thrusted these kids (one of whom Mark Romanek) into their first real foray into film-making, but he also lessened some of the possible stress on the situation in two ways: he took some of the same freewheeling, seemingly improvisational approach that he took with his early satires (the great Hi, Mom and the decent Greetings), and he also made it a silly comedy based around his obsessions and personal history. It's a send-up of self-made stardom, adultery, male dominant control, and the craftiness in the craft of film-making, and it's very funny.But to say how funny it is or why would have to reveal too much of the plot, which I'd rather leave open ended for those who might find this in their local video store's obscure picks. All I'll say is that Kirk Douglas plays the Maestro (introduced by a hilarious lot of egotistical opening titles), teaching a class about how he faltered in getting a young man, Dennis Bird (Keith Gordon) to move on from being just an "extra" in his life to being the star of his own making. Gordon's Dennis is the youngest in the Bird family, which includes an adulterous doctor father, a weepy and half-crazy (and half all-for-attention) mother, and a brother, James (the scene stealing meat-head played by Gerrit Graham with the same tenacity as in Phantom of Paradise), who teaches a summer class on Spartanism to a bunch of impressionable youths. He's also getting engaged to Kristina (always gorgeous Nancy Allen), but there's some trouble and friction in their possible "socio-economic contract".Meanwhile, Dennis meets the Maestro while acting as a Peeping Tom up in a tree, and becomes an amateur filmmaker. Now, as this all sounds, it's a little stuck together in cheap style and rough edges, which adds to its charm. It's made almost as if De Palma knows it's something of a fluke, and just wants to get his students as enthusiastic as possible about the process; it wouldn't be as much fun having them on, for example, Casualtues of War. And as one of De Palma's experimental comedies, it provides for the director, through a better than expected script from his pupils, to express some of his nuttiest scenes, including some scenes where Kristina has to unleash the "rabbit", and the running gag with Gordon dressed in black face and an afro sneaking around at night. It's not anywhere near a great comedy, but for what De Palma was after it's a success. In short, it's a low-key hoot, and De Palma fans looking for some ridiculous and crazy gags and character development won't be disappointed.