Bigger, Blacker, Badder and Drunker.

Was Richard Pryor the first Black Comedian? Yes, there was Cosby before him, but Bill Cosby – even though technically a black man – was a white comedian. Prior to Eddie, Martin, Morgan, Sinbad, Tucker, Rock – there was Pryor.

RICHARD PRYOR: OMIT THE LOGIC is a 2013 retrospective of the hard life and harder times of revolutionary black comedian Richard Pryor (1940-2005), from his upbringing in a Peoria brothel (where his grandmother was the madame and his father and uncles were pimps), through his halcyon days as stand-up comedian, writer, TV star, movie star, director, wife-collector, junkie, burn victim and ultimately multiple sclerosis victim. It pulls no punches and asks no apologies. It’s like one long BEHIND THE MUSIC episode with an extra helping of “Then tragedy struck…” (Some may opine that tragedy is the essence of these bio-docs; sells advertising…)

OMIT THE LOGIC shows Pryor at his hilarious best and his damnable worst. An influence to many, if not all, black comedians (as Damon Wayans notes, “If you didn’t steal nothin’ from Richard, you probably ain’t that funny anyway”), the controversial firebrand Pryor started as a clean-cut establishment kid in the early ’60s, trying to be Cosby. He made it to Vegas that way. And then one night, he just started swearing onstage – and got fired. From that night, he became Richard Pryor: if he couldn’t do it his way, he warn’t gonna do it at all.

Probably the only person before Pryor who brought the ferocious street into the tame vaudeville atmosphere of standup comedy was Lenny Bruce (1925-1966), whose career had flamed out by the time Pryor was finding his feet. Even a white man couldn’t attack the system that hard and live. Riding that self-destructive wave, now came a black comedian fighting that establishment every step of the way, with all the same demons. Pryor exposed his deepest darkness to the stage, in routines liberally sprinkled with fuck, shit, motherfucker, kiss-my-black-ass and, of course, the word that apparently cracks mountains and freezes suns – nigger. When they deigned to make him the star of his own TV Show they wanted castration in return, and when Pryor performed a sketch showing how he tows that line – we see him naked with a Ken-doll smoothness where his penis should be – the network cut that sketch! It seems that every episode was a constant battle between Pryor and the network over content and censorship. Pryor fought the good fight, going down in the end, of course, but going down black and proud.

There is much coverage of Pryor’s “epiphany” when he visited Africa and realized that “there were no niggers there,” that no one was a nigger when everyone was one, that it was a debasement of the highest order, vowing never to use the word again, and actually sticking by that vow.

Fascinating and fast-paced, outlining Pryor’s numerous LP records (his third release, That Nigger’s Crazy (1974) would win a Grammy, and hit #1 on Billboard charts for four weeks), and many of his forgotten and smaller films that still resonate to this day (WATTSTAX, WHICH WAY IS UP?). His commercial releases like BREWSTER’S MILLIONS and THE TOY are signals that Pryor had become Whitey’s bitch. When we see that old footage of Pryor, eyes ablaze, calling Chevy Chase “Honky!” and then in reply to Chevy’s cry of “Nigger!” righteously retorting “Dead honky!” we remember his original fire, and tend to agree with how those later movies castrated him almost without his knowledge.

Doc features interviews from Pryor’s closest (if his many ex-wives and former girlfriends can be called that) to his business colleagues (lawyers, managers, etc.) and fellow performers and contemporaries, like Jesse Jackson, Robin Williams, Bob Newhart and Paul Mooney. Listed as “Wife 5 & 7,” Jennifer Lee Pryor is especially featured, as is writing partner Mooney.

I’ve always considered Pryor’s concert film LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP (1983) not as gritty as LIVE AND SMOKIN (1971) and not as funny as LIVE IN CONCERT (1979), and we find out that the SUNSET STRIP footage is actually the second night performing that set, having bombed miserably the first night, inauspiciously leaving the stage early after apologizing to the audience, uncomfortably admitting “this thing we’re trying to get going is just not working.”

Pryor’s tragic last years would see him become wheelchair-bound as the MS eats at him. Documentary closes with Pryor hoping how he’d like to be remembered: that he would bring joy to people speaking of him, that they’d have a funny story/lie about him, or something that would just make them laugh. Despite all the tragedies he suffered (including a self-admitted suicide attempt where he set himself on fire), all one needs to do is watch one of his routines and his wish always comes true.

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If you’re thinkin’ of being my remake, it don’t matter if you’re black or white.

Took brass balls to remake the legendary WIZARD OF OZ – or maybe just black balls. The pinky-white euphemism “urban” doesn’t disguise THE WIZ for what it is – a black version of THE WIZARD OF OZ.

It’s what the original WIZARD OF OZ desperately needed to be: more raw, more earthy, more funkaaaay. On paper, THE WIZ sounds cool as James Brown in a popsicle factory. On stage (music and lyrics by Charlie Smalls), the 1975 Broadway production won seven Tony awards. On film… uh, well, on stage it won seven Tony awards…

Dorothy (Diana Ross) is a Harlem kindergarten teacher who is transported via a snowstorm to the Land of Oz (i.e. New York on LSD), where she is told that the only person who can get her home is the powerful Wiz in the Emerald City, which she can find by easing on down the yellow brick road. Along the way, she meets three misfits who join her trek, Scarecrow (Michael Jackson), Tinman (Nipsey Russell) and Lion (Ted Ross).

The story retains all the themes and messages of the original – that of belief in yourself, with each character exhibiting the characteristics they think they lack – and the throughline of seeking the Wiz for favors. Then there are the brainless messages, as when Dorothy is captured and lets all her friends get mutilated instead of surrendering her slippers to the wicked witch (Mabel King). Just when we think Dorothy has such staunch principles, the witch threatens to fry Dorothy’s dog Toto (which isn’t even cute) and she relents. Hey, nice priorities: let your friends die but don’t harm the pet. Take notes, kids.

Joel Schumacher (CAR WASH) screenplays THE WIZ for director Sidney Lumet (DOG DAY AFTERNOON). Really? Two whiteys in charge?

At least they retained composer Charlie Smalls’s music, augmented by Quincy Jones as MD/composer. And that makes the music – contrary to most musicals – the only redeeming factor in THE WIZ. Usually in musicals, we tune out when the action stops for the tiresome musical numbers; here, with Smalls and Jones in super funky mode, the songs are the most interesting diversions. Not all of them are catchy or enjoyable the first time round, and some may sound disco-dated, but for the most part, they raise the pedestrian level of the action tenfold.

To wit: the movie’s signature song Ease On Down The Road (equivalent to the original’s We’re Off To See The Wizard); or check out the powerful tenor on Ted Ross as the Lion and the saucy brass section on his signature tune, I’m A Mean Ole Lion. (I especially like his high-heeled paws!) Like the original, the Lion garners the most laughs (until Richard Pryor appears and then it’s all laughs on him).

Years on, the achievement of the monumental dance numbers in the Emerald City still amaze, with Quincy Jones cameoing as a piano player.

Lena Horne cameos as good witch Glinda. And Richard Pryor is The Wiz! (Wouldn’t it have been more appropriate for The Wiz to be the great and powerful Quincy Jones?) And the same twisted messages of magic muddled with platitudes wash over us like a retarded tsunami.

In the end (except for some of the songs) THE WIZ is as silly and badly-structured as THE WIZARD OF OZ. Only blacker.

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The Last Gasp of the Last Son of Krypton.

It’s a Richard Pryor movie starring Superman. No, it’s a Superman movie starring Richard Pryor. Whatever it is, no one’s taking SUPERMAN III seriously.

Richard Pryor’s performance is the only credible meat in this debacle, which features the relatively new concept of “computers” being utilized for eeeevil, and with a subplot of Superman affected by hybrid kryptonite which doesn’t kill him but makes him do really bad things like get drunk and flick peanuts at mirrors. (See what I mean about taking it seriously?)

Though Pryor is surrounded by now-veteran SUPERMAN co-stars (Doug McClure as Jimmy Olsen, Margot Kidder as Lois Lane, Jackie Cooper as Perry White) and A-Listers Robert Vaughn (as the villain) and talented comedienne Pamela Stephenson (as the villain’s T&A, who does nothing more than minimally expose her T&A), he alone saves the movie from descending to the Ninth Level of Hell with his inimitable turn as a computer hacker patsy hired by Vaughn for evil ends.

Christopher Reeve is once again the Man of Steel and is given such an abominable script – coupled with the worst and cheapest flying effects you will ever see – that wearing his neon blue and red duds out in public is starting to look exceptionally gay.

Gone is the slick production value; gone is the tagline “You’ll believe a man can fly” because when you watch SUPERMAN III, you’re pretty sure a man can’t fly and that he’s being levitated by guy wires attached to a crane. Gone is the majestic music – Ken Thorne is only allowed minimal snatches of John Williams’s grand theme, the rest of the soundtrack consisting of slapstick toodles to accompany director Richard Lester’s supposedly uproarious slapstick action. To call the opening credit sequence a third grader’s idea of comedy is a compliment.

The references to “computers” (in their boxy housings with big qwerty keyboards and green text on black screens) will look especially dated to youngsters; the acting will make you want to kill your pet, the audio looping will make you want to slap your child, and when Superman “goes bad” we see that his idea of badness is as juvenile as his idea of goodness…

I’ve said this before: with the powers that Superman possesses, he shouldn’t even THINK about “bank robbers” or “people falling down and hurting themselves” – this guy should be dealing with crime at the highest corporate and government levels, the “white collar” crime that CREATES low level crime by creating economic social rifts.

But who is really paying attention when his undies are so bright and tight? By the mid-1980s, Superman comicbooks had been developing storylines and character over 50 years – yet this third modern SUPERMAN movie still retains the provincial mentality of the 1950s.

Superman is handed pseudo-kryptonite by Richard Pryor (doing his best General Patton – one of the films three great laughs) which doesn’t kill him, but makes him go bad: Supes straightens out the Leaning Tower of Pisa, blows out the Olympic torch, punctures an oil tanker, and gets drunk. You know, true evil. Oh, and he almost grows a three-day shadow, the universal stamp of sexy Euro villains. And when he has the opportunity to slam Pamela Stephenson atop the Statue of Liberty, he accedes to doing her a favor first in return for her sexual favors! Yeah, badness like Mister Rogers.

It takes an hour for the film to reach this semi-interesting point – and then it goes nowhere with the concept. Superman merely splits into two people – himself and Clark Kent – and battles soporifically with himself in a junkyard, raising the film almost to the level of boring. Clark Kent triumphs. Hooray for dorks!

Another subplot involves Clark Kent returning to Smallville for a school reunion and hitting the picnic blanket hard with Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole) and her son. A plot strand – like the factory fire or the dual personality bit or the fat couple vacationing in South America – that goes nowhere at super speed.

One would think that director Richard Lester, after making such a hash of SUPERMAN 2, would have been issued a restraining order against any Superman product. Instead, producer Alexander Salkind re-hires the insipid comedy director to make a hash of SUPERMAN III as well.

And Lester succeeds beyond anyone’s wildest expectations.

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Pryor Offense.

Like Richard Pryor, let’s get straight to the point: if you are a spineless, politically-correct, programmed W.A.S.P. drogue who quails at the words motherfucker, shit, or nigger, keep pretending there’s nothing beyond your Disney Gold Membership Pass and stay away from this movie.

In this modern era of hack comedians packing concert halls like rockstars (John Pinette, Paula Poundstone, Ralphie May, Larry the Cable Guy), we must remind ourselves of the savage historical context behind RICHARD PRYOR: LIVE IN CONCERT. Not only was Pryor a pioneering comic (one of the first stream of consciousness stand-ups who didn’t rely on structured stories and snare-hit punchlines to get guffaws), he was a pioneering BLACK comic. Though he was filmed in 1971 for LIVE AND SMOKIN’ (released in 1985), this 1978 performance in Long Beach, California is arguably his first and best onscreen barnstorming.

Red silk shirt, black bellbottoms, frenetic, energetic, youthful and vital, as street-hardened as the Peoria whorehouse he grew up in, Pryor reels through analyses of white people versus black people, cops not letting him kill his car, heart attacks, his pet monkey getting raped by his pet dog, John Wayne kicking Death’s ass, his father dying during sex with an eighteen year-old, deer hunting, sparring with Muhammad Ali, proving to his woman he is “Macho Maaaan” – and a host of other classics and not-so-classics (when comedians start in on pet stories, they lose me), with dead-on mimicry and raptor delivery.

Before Eddie Murphy made swearing onstage a staple; before Chris Rock’s attack-dog style, before Sinbad telling us “black people be different than white people”; before Dave Chappelle pushed envelopes – here was the Original: Rawer than Eddie Murphy, Bigger and Blacker than Chris Rock, more Brain-Damaged than Sinbad, Killing Them Softly by pushing the envelope over a cliff with everyone – honkies and niggers both – screaming for mercy.

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