First off, Richard Pryor released a few concert films; or at least, people trying to make money off his talent did. This review is only concerning the very first film, and it's called exactly Richard Pryor Live in Concert (my #17). This will always be my "go-to" film when I need to just laugh and feel a bit better about life. I've talked to many people of many ages, and they all have their fave stand-up comics, but I find it hard to believe that a truthful person could watch this film and not tell me that Pryor is the funniest, most-honest person on the face of the Earth here. If you deny that, then tell me somebody who can remotely perform so many human and animal characters on stage. The man pours his entire soul out in this wonderful movie, and I feel privileged to relive it two or three times a year with my friends and family. R.I.P. He talks about sex, family, racism, pets, drugs, hunting, boxing, heart attacks, sexism, funerals, children, corporal punishment, wet Q-tips, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, long lines, freaky-deaky, The Exorcist, the Vincent Price The Fly, "Macho Man", "dead person", Long Beach, and much more. I laugh longer and more often at this movie than any other movie I've seen, and when I'm not laughing, I'm wearing an enormous smile of recognition. OK, I availed myself to the funniest, most truthful concert film I've ever seen again, and I sure hope that I don't cause a riot here, but Richard Pryor Live in Concert still has to rate to me as the funniest film I've ever seen. I will admit that loving this film, especially as a "white person", leaves me open to charges of racism, but let's not shy away from that, and follow Pryor's lead. Pryor uses the "N" word incessantly. It's true that a few years after this joyous, wonderful film that Pryor swore off ever using the "N" word again. He said that it was an insult to all those he loved and all those who loved him. Even so, this film completely and honestly captures Pryor before he had a change of heart. I completely respect his change of heart, but I also completely respect his earlier opinion to rub people's faces in the reality of being a "black person". Now, I don't think I need to explain myself here, but I was born and raised in Compton, California. I have spent my entire life equally surrounded by Blacks, Latinos and Whites. I have also allowed them to think their own thoughts about our situation, unless they come across as racist pigs. Thankfully, I recall no racist pigs, and I certainly don't want that way-ahead-of-his-time GIANT, Richard Pryor, to be thought that way either.
Nothing to apologize for here.
In Concert is one of the funniest films of all time, and almost certainly the greatest stand-up film. Many people prefer
Sunset Strip, which has a little more significance due to its circumstances, but it's not as strong as
In Concert. In
Strip, the cameras were making Pryor uncomfortable throughout, and
Concert had the good taste to keep the cameras at a distance (and the audience out of frame).
As for the PC aspects, I have little tolerance. One of the worst presumptions of PC is that it excuses the youth from doing a little homework to figure out the context of history. Pryor was always
real, and authenticity remains a constant threat to the tepid-hearted. If someone wants to examine the culture in which Pryor lived and was raised, or the biographical details of his personal and social struggles, be my guest. But anyone who would consider either this film or those who laugh at his humor to be "racists" is someone I simply don't have the patience to acknowledge.
Disney's greatest traditional animated film is still just about the most surreal movie ever made (take that, Buñuel
). It's also Disney's funniest, even though the humor is incredibly dark. Alice in Wonderland (my #15) is a non-stop assault on the pomposity of logic and staid Victorian England which is also still able to include digs at many modern foibles which humans have in our current day and age, among them being rude and in far too much of a hurry to even say good day. It's also a potent political satire when we get to the Red Queen and how all things must be her and the "law's" way. But above all, it's crazy and just a lot of fun. There are so many crazy characters to choose from: the White Rabbit, the Doorknob, the Walrus, the Carpenter, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Bill (my fave, "Well, there goes Bill!"), the Mad Hatter, the March Hare, the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen and King of Hearts, etc. The animators let their minds run wild and created a trip of a movie, that's for sure.
I'm surprise that there wasn't any classic Disney on the list. I chose
Fantasia as my #2, but I could have seen
Alice,
Dumbo or
Pinocchio in the running.