A Frank Review of "The Brother From Another Planet" and "Hey, Mom!"

In "The Brother From Another Planet," Joe Morton plays an alien slave on the run from his masters in Harlem circa 1984. Though a mute, the three-toed extraterrestrial has a variety of superpowers he uses to make a living, evade capture, and effect social change. John Sayles' film is whimsical and clever, a real low-key pleasure. Morton is great as always, enabled by a strong supporting cast.




On the same $1.00 DVD was Brian DePalma's early comedy, the 1969 oddity "Hey, Mom!" Alternately known as "Blue Manhatten" and "Son of Greetings," the film serves as a sequal to the x-rated "Greetings." Robert DeNiro plays a returning Vietnam vet who embarks on a career as a Peeping Tom pornographer before joining an extremist Black Power organization. DeNiro's great, but the move meanders with lengthy tangents and unrelenting quirkiness of the sort one might expect from an ambitious student film. I'd have to check to see if the overlapping dialogue predated Altman.