Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling

I won't conceal that Richard Pryor is one my favorite comic actor ever, all those fabulous funny comedies side by side with Gene Wilder are priceless, his acerbic and harsh words mocking their own black people shaken the system in America, after reaches at stardom as best stand up comic, he made a huge successful career as actor, in this autobiography after virtually committed suicide burning himself doped in drugs and booze.

Aiming for starting over he managed a rereading of his personal life since the beginning as boy living with his grandmother and his early steps in show business aid by Satin Doll and passing by several marriages, thru his spirit he saw his own mistakes and bearing in mind how should made something different in order to reroute his tragic life, it somehow sheds lights in obscure past of Pryor life, as how he starting drugs himself in a poisoned environment and wrong wives and companions, then he entered in merry-go-round of self-destruction that let him attempts against own life.

Wrote, produced and directed by Pryor it sounds as crying for help, obviously later it proved be fruitless, due he was back at wrong road again, even so this failure picture had many accurate elements concerning Pryor's persona, worthwhile a look, unfortunately this picture didn't arrive here in any format.

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First watch: 1989 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-Youtube / Rating: 7.5.

Its as close to an autobiography as you can get without it being one. Its sad, somewhat pathetic but beautiful and funny as well.

I hadn't watch Prior for a while so it was nice to step back into his comedic groove and revel in what made him so great.

The man was a legend :)

...this movie resonates all the more of the difficult life he lived and the humor that somehow came out of it.

Pryor begins life as the son of a Prostitute, later turns his hyper energy into Theatre (thanks to a school teacher who he later gave his 1st Emmey to), turns to drug and alcohol addiction, is savagely burned during a bad freebase accident, is diagnosed with MS, is forced to spend his life in a wheelchair and throughout goes through many divorces. And the man is funny - what a genius (campare to Beethoven's life).

Props to Richard Pryor for sharing his life and also for being the 1st African-American comedian to take on 'race' and actually making it work.

Pryor was the Man!

I've always enjoyed "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling" but it does have more than its fair share of flaws. The movie just doesn't work as well as it should have. Maybe Richard Pryor should have handed the direction off to a seasoned veteran rather than trying to do it himself. I don't know. The alter-ego stuff works well in some scenes and not that well in others. Visually the alter-ego is almost never convincing. "Jo Jo Dancer" is well acted but it seems to be longer than it actually is. The scenes with young Jo Jo are great. The "accident" scene is heartbreaking. Much of the stand up stuff isn't that good, especially Jo Jo's strip scene (ouch). I still watch this movie from time to time but it's just not completely satisfying. (I saw "Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling" in the theater when it first came out.)

I'm not sure if a biographical film as raw and truthful as "Jo Jo Dancer" ever had a chance to be a big financial hit. But viewed now, more than 15 years later, it is obvious that the film did not deserve the critical drubbing it got back in the day. Writer-director-producer-star Richard Pryor created a very strong film, simultaneously entertaining, funny, pathetic, provocative, heartbreaking, revealing, and raw. Two things held it back. Firstly, it was too rough for the super-slick mid-80s, being shot and structured more like a seventies film. Secondly, even though the climax of the film--Jo Jo setting himself on fire in a harrowing, drug-fueled despair--is powerful, it lacks a sense of closure. Sadly, the reason for this is that, like the real life Richard Pryor upon whose life the story is based, Jo Jo doesn't die at the end. He is badly burned and we are briefly shown that he lives to continue his career, just as Pryor did.

The story is told through flashbacks, after Jo Jo has set himself on fire, focusing on how he got to that point. Since the story abruptly ends soon after his suicide attempt, however, we are not shown much of what happens after that point. In an odd bit of irony, Jo Jo's survival then makes for an unsatisfying conclusion, story-wise. It's as though Pryor is saying, hey I burned myself up and that made me all better. It just isn't satisfying.

Other than those minor points, however, "Jo Jo" is a fine film that stands as one of the best of Pryor's spotty film career, and one of the very few dramatic films that allowed his unique brand of rage and vulnerability to show through completely ("Blue Collar" and "The Mack" being two others).

Not a classic, but certainly not the bomb it was painted as in '86. And, I might add, head and shoulders above the majority of dramatic films cranked out by hollywood today.