Home Movies (1980)

the audience applauded

Simply Perfect

Just perfect...

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

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)

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.

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.

Brian DePalma's "Home Movies" is a genuinely strange film. It is hard to believe that DePalma made this. It doesn't have the superb technical credits that you come to expect from him. It doesn't have a logical story (for DePalma that is). And it doesn't have the big budgets DePalma's films are accustomed to ("Sisters" has a budget of 500,000 bucks; this film was made on a few thousand)What it does have is a goofy charm that most Hollywood comedies lack these days. The story is nonsense, but that's a good thing in this case. And the low budget is appropriate because it suits the story. Most of the cast are from other DePalma films, of which I'll let you know.The film stars Kirk Douglas ("The Fury")as The Maestro (the video title), a teacher who films his life constantly. He attempts to have his prize pupil Keith Gordon ("Dressed to Kill")do the same, but he has problems of his own. The object of his affection is Nancy Allen ("Dressed to Kill", "Carrie", "Blow Out"), a hooker who has too many vices for her own good. The problem? She is attached to Gordon's brother (wonderfully played by Gerrit Graham, who appeared in most of DePalma's early films and just about stole "Soup for One"), who is a nut.All this is established within the first 25 minutes or so and the film's success depends on all of the surprises DePalma sets up, so I won't reveal any more. Some people might be turned off of "Home Movies" possibly due to the content, but more probably due to the visual style. Today's audiences are accustomed to gloss and if they don't get it, they protest. If you are one of those people, I just want to say three words: SHAME ON YOU!!!!!!!! How dare you criticize a film just because it doesn't look glossy like Hollywood product does? "Pi", a film I admired highly, had the same dilemma. Made on a shoestring budget, the film's grittiness helped it more than hurt it and the same goes for "Home Movies". DePalma shoots on 16mm and makes the film look like someone's home movies, which is appropriate since the Kirk Douglas character is constantly filming his own life (and others). Also, give DePalma credit for helping his students get a first credit (the film was made as a class project for Sarah Lawrence College). Robby Benson did a similar thing in 1990 with "Modern Love" and was heavily criticized, despite the fact that it was a good, strong film. "Home Movies" isn't as strong as his more accomplished thrillers, but it is a very entertaining movie that had me smiling most of the way. And how can you hate any movie that casts Gerrit Graham as a slimeball?*** out of 4 stars