Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

Full of feeling, and packed with the kinds of interesting moments you'd expect. It never talks down to you or wastes time connecting eras of his life, but instead presents a series of vignettes. The soundtrack is outstanding. The problems are that some of the situational humor seems off-key in the midst of more serious content, and the performances don't really come together either. By the end I still didn't understand Richard Pryor and suspect he didn't either.

beautiful autobiographical movie by Richard Pryor. I don't know why this isn't more popular

Apt title: occasional unsavoury element notwithstanding, Pryor's coke-fuelled sprint down memory lane is much more This Is Your Life than self-immolation. As always, it's what isn't there: Jo Jo is smacked around by a lady love not once but twice, yet never returns fire, even heroically holding back when one actually, tearfully, implores him to hit her after an episode of infidelity. (In reality, he broke one wife's leg, set a girlfriend's coat on fire, and put a good beating on several others.)