Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip (1982)

Director: Joe Layton

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Pryor is a one-man comic circus: mime artist, piss artist, wisecracker and, briefly in 1981, human firecracker. His freebasing accident gives him the chance to get one back at his fans when he strikes a match at the end of his gig and waves it at the audience: 'Richard Pryor running down the street, huh? I know all that shit you have been saying while I was away'. But nothing's burned out inside him. The jokes still go off like repeater fireworks, a second punchline catching you unawares just when you thought your sides were splitting for real. Pryor's act (and the filming of it) is so smoothly articulated , one subject detouring into another, that it's impossible to isolate favourite individual routines. But you have to see it - a couple of times - to savour the satire and relish the wit of the solo stand-up comic who's so slick and smartassed he makes Alexei Sayle look like a glove puppet and George Burns a dinosaur.

Author: MA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Joe Layton

Producer: Richard Pryor

Cast: Richard Pryor full cast

Genre(s): Comedy

Duration: 81 mins

Related articles




Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.