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With its fractured narrative, complete with a gimmicky spectral figure guiding us through the proceedings, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling is Richard Pryor’s All That Jazz. Playing like a greatest hits collection of Pryor’s stand-up routines, it begins with the titular character freebasing his way into a hospital burn unit, features him pulling a starter pistol on the mafia, and shows him destroying his wife’s car when she threatens to leave him.

Jo Jo Dancer’s profession mirrors Pryor’s own, as does his backstory: The film was shot in Peoria, Illinois, Pryor’s hometown and the location of the brothel where both he and Jo Jo grew up. Columbia Pictures wouldn’t grant Bob Fosse’s wish to play All That Jazz’s Joe Gideon, but they let Pryor play himself, or “himself” as it were, creating a meta experience before meta was cool.

As movie fans are likely well aware, the Criterion Collection is the home video company that distributes prestige editions of some of the greatest films ever made, plus Armageddon. Cinephiles love Criterion so much that they’ll even wait for several hours in the rain just to climb into the back of a van that resembles one of their office’s storage closets.

Criterion recently announced their latest batch of additions to the collection, and it includes a fairly surprising title: a 4K restoration of 1986’s Jo Jo Dancer Your Life Is Calling.

As we’ve discussed before, Jo Jo Dancer is essentially an experimental Richard Pryor biopic that was co-written and directed by Pryor. He also stars as his fictional surrogate who, in the film’s opening moments, nearly burns to death, not unlike Pryor, after freebasing cocaine.

Jo Jo’s soul departs his burned body as it struggles to survive,...

“Pimps, poverty, racism — he took all that dark shit and made it light,” says writer and historian Dr. Todd Boyd in the Paramount Network’s upcoming documentary I Am Richard Pryor, which dives deep into the life of the titular comedy legend. The film will have its world premiere on March 12 at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin and will debut March 15 on the Paramount Network.

As part of the network’s I Am docuseries, I Am Richard Pryor is directed by Jesse James Miller and explores and celebrates the life and career of the iconic comedian who lifted himself out of poverty to achieve worldwide success. As seen in the trailer above, Miller tells the story of Pryor via his wife Jennifer as well as high-profile comedians, writers, producers and actors including Sandra Bernhard, Ron De Blasio, Michael Epps, Tiffany Haddish, Howie Mandel, Lily Tomlin, Rocco Urbisci, Jimmie Walker and others.