Cheri Wells Movies
- 1986
- R
- Add Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling to QueueAdd Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling to top of Queue
Popular African-American comedian Jo Jo Dancer is severely burned while free-basing cocaine. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. While hovering between life and death, Dancer flashes back to his childhood, when he grew up in a brothel. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. Dancer decides to become a comic, but has a great many difficulties rising to stardom until he begins making scatological comments about race relations. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists that the movie is not autobiographical. As he rises to fame, Jo Jo has problems controlling his drug addiction and womanizing. Producer/director/writer Richard Pryor insists.....Well, you've caught on by now. If one were able to excise the excruciatingly boring "introspection" scene, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling would stand as an excellent testimonial to Richard Pryor's cutting-edge comic brilliance. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Pryor, Debbie Allen, (more)
Martha Coolidge directed this comedy taking place at fictional Pacific Tech, concerning incoming freshman Mitch (Gabe Jarret), a high school student whose Science Fair project made important inroads into laser beam technology. Mitch has been recruited by famed physics professor Hathaway (William Atherton), who asks Mitch to work in his laboratory. On campus, Mitch becomes roommates with the brilliant Chris Knight (Val Kilmer), legendary as the smartest freshman in the history of the college; but now, as a senior, he is less interested in his studies and more interested in having fun. It turns out that Hathaway is enlisting his students, unbeknownst to them, as a slave labor force to do research in developing a state-of-the-art laser device for the Defense Department (he uses his government grant funds to build a house). But Chris and Mitch begin to suspect that something is amiss with Hathaway's project. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Val Kilmer, Gabe Jarret, (more)
