In the midst of a freebase freakout, famed comedian Jo Jo (Richard Pryor) blows up his living room, as you typically do. Somehow, he’s taken to the hospital where, as he lays dying, his astral form steps out of his dying body and he wanders naked through the parking lot; good thing a limo is there to pick him up and, I suppose, clothe him.

Over the next 90 minutes, we’re taken through Jo Jo’s (nonfictional) life, starting as a child growing up in a whorehouse, to a teenager leaving home to work in a comedy club. By this point, it’s easy to see that Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling is semi-autobiographical, as then we’re treated to the drink, the drugs and the women plaguing and, ultimately, destroying Jo Jo’s (and Pryor’s) life.

While this would be a disastrous hour-and-a-half funeral dirge for many, Pryor makes sure there are just as many laughs as there are tears — a real feat, especially given the sensitive subject matter. Towing the dreamlike line between real life and real fantasy, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling was a remarkably entertaining way for Pryor to tell his tale of comedic woe, especially in the wake of his self-immolation.

The lone film directed by Pryor, from a screenplay co-written with comedian Paul Mooney, it’s a lost cult classic that will probably never receive the timely due it truly deserves; as a matter of fact, I had to pick up Time-Life’s Ultimate Richard Pryor Collection to find a good copy of it. To be fair, I was going to get that anyway. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.

While many people look to 1990’s Home Alone as the height of John Hughes’ Hollywood power, I look to the next year, filled with unsung flicks like Only the Lonely, Dutch and, at the top of my list, Career Opportunities, directed by TV’s Bryan Gordon; don’t worry, I haven’t heard of him, either.

The ultimate hipster by today’s standards, Jim Dodge (Frank Whaley) is the ultimate loser: Although over 21 years of age, he lives as home, is the town liar and, worse, starts a job at Target as the overnight janitor. As expected in these studies of arrested development, he goofs off at work, mostly by roller-skating in his boxers while wearing a wedding veil.

This all changes when he meets the alarmingly beautiful Josie (the alarmingly beautiful Jennifer Connelly), an emotionally impoverished rich girl who, apparently, fell asleep in the dressing rooms. Against all rhyme and reason, they fall in love. (Hey, it was the ’90s.)

The movie kind of falls apart in the third act when we’re introduced to two redneck crooks who are there to rob (?) the Target. As annoying as that might be for those who missed the pristine Hughes of the ’80s, it’s easy to forget the coasting Hughes of the ’90s, when comical crooks were a must.

Regardless, I’ve always loved this movie; even though it proved to be a Home Alone for the Gen X crowd that, obviously, had no time for it. Still, much of it worked, mostly due to the likable presence of Connelly and the sheer hope that, if I worked at Target, too, maybe I’d meet a girl like her.

Sadly, I worked at the local library instead, missing my chance. —Louis Fowler

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Even though I am not a pot smoker and more than likely never will be, I have to admit I find marijuana comedies pretty dang funny.

Growing up on the starter drug of Cheech and Chong movies when I was a toddler, I have found the predicaments and solutions by cinematic stoners and their kind bud to usually be one of the seven rings of true comedy, with 1997’s Half Baked fitting in there nicely, a truly stupid film packed with truly stupid laughs.

Thurgood Jenkins (Dave Chappelle) is the quintessential weed enthusiast with a janitorial job and a circle of bros who practically stay stoned. When one of his crew gets arrested for accidentally killing a police horse, they decide to become drug dealers themselves, thanks to a special strain of sativa they get from Thurgood’s job at a laboratory.

Becoming the hottest dope dealers in the New York City area, they soon gain the unwanted attention of notorious criminal Samson Simpson (Clarence Williams III), leading to an absolutely minor gang war — the kind that’s probably expected in a movie like this, i.e., the pot-influenced equivalent of a Three Stooges pie fight.

Produced by Robert Simonds (the money man behind SNL-related classics like Billy Madison, Joe Dirt, and, uh, Corky Romano), Half Baked is definitely a product of the illegal times. With legalization only blocks from my house now, it seems almost quaint; still, the scenarios, some 20 or so years later, bring the laughs.

Although, I imagine if I did smoke weed, I’d probably be one of the pot archetypes in the movie, finding all of this stupid — and not in a good way. —Louis Fowler

Get it at Amazon.