Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic (2005)

Truly Dreadful Film

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

"Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic" features very funny comedian stuck in a very bad movie. At her stand-up Silverman can be the master of her instrument. Yet, here she is stuck in a movie that is distracting and disorganized. It is part concert film, part variety show. The former works, but the latter is like throwing a rock through the rest of the movie. You're left with the intense urge to hit the fast-forward button.Silverman has, like all stand-up comedians, a specialty. Yet her act is somewhat different than the usual comedians who stick to time-weathered material about the everyday battles with the universe like sex, politics, coffee shops and microwave ovens. Instead she talks about edgy subjects such like AIDS, race, pornography, even 9/11, and then punctuates her comments with shocking commentary. She pushes herself into unhealthy waters and her fearlessness is brought home by the fact that she doesn't seem to be bulldozing the material by being crass or mean. There's poise and intelligence to her delivery. She is pretty and well-mannered but her words take an unexpected U-Turn into commentary that is shocking. "I believe that the best time to have a baby is . . . when you're a black teenager" she tells us. That's offense, and it's funny.Part of the problem with her first movie "Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic" is that there's not enough of that. Her act has a conversational flow to it, a pattern of beginning as something mundane but then ending it with something shockingly un-PC. Yet, the movie breaks this pattern every few minutes by bad skits and musical numbers of no consequence. We came to see her stage act, I think the image she wants to project (at least on stage) is the image of a person who is insecure but unaware of the racist and sexist language that she uses. That's fine, but it requires an artist who can orchestrate it like music. She's done it before, but somehow it all falls flat here. There needed to be some measure of consistency. Throw out the lame sketches and the music and get down to the business of doing what she does best. Sadly, it's not here.*1/2 (of four)

As a comedy lover, I often rate titles in such genre more lovingly than others. This may be true for "Jesus is Magic", but here I feel more self-assured of my evaluation than I normally am.To save on a lengthy explanation, it suffices to say that this Jewish girl has an unique taste for comedy - and I mean it not only when compared to her contemporary comedians (some of whom I like better than her); but to all the comedy I've set my eyes on on my not-so-short life.I'm writing this review a few weeks after a guy named Bernie Goldberg, a pundit on a channel you won't probably know about in the future, used the word "edgy" referring to another successful Jewish comedian of our time, Jon Stewart. The reason why I mention this is because, due to this, I don't feel very comfortable to use this word to describe Sarah's performance on this particular movie. Sarah herself used the word on the movie, and I noticed a few of my fellow reviewers did the same.But now that I think about it, I guess I'm more comfortable with the word. After all, in the present day, if any comedians deserve to be called edgy, those would be Mr. Leibowitz and Ms. Silverman. But people following trends should be aware.For some of us with a sense of humour, "edgy" may also mean disturbing or disgusting. Sarah goes a step too far not once or twice, but I'd say throughout the whole movie. And I thank her for that.And I also thank her for keeping the fire burning, for those of us who believe there isn't a single thing in comedy that's off-limits. Not even my mother's death. If you can't laugh about it, life's going to become ugly really fast.P.S.: My mother isn't dead. Of course I don't want the person I love the most on Earth to die, but that doesn't mean I can't joke about it. I know most of you who ended up here will get me, but yet I'm explaining, and that makes me feel really stupid. And even that's funny!

Narrative digressions on sex, race, politics, and more from comedienne Sarah Silverman.I love Sarah Silverman. I love her jokes, her songs, her face. So it saddens me that this is supposed to be her big break for a DVD. Even with Liam Lynch directing and helping write the song, it just never excels.Some really good material appears on this movie -- some of her best jokes, and at least one really good song ("You're Gonna Die Soon"). But there is a lot of filler. The backstage scenes are not funny and serve little purpose, the opening and closing really are not funny, and the closing song is mildly amusing but more childish than clever. Worst of all, twenty minutes of jokes are stretched to 45 minutes due to a lot of pauses and silences. What we hear is great, but we have to wait too long to hear it. Cutting the video down in time, or adding more jokes would really have done wonders as far as keeping me laughing.But there is hope. She has her own show now, which is doing well, and has one of the most memorable scenes from "The Aristocrats". So Sarah Silverman is just getting started, I think. Her next DVD, should there be one, will likely blow us all away.

I've seen Sarah Silverman in plenty of films and TV appearances, but this is my first time seeing her stand-up act in its entirety. Altogether, I enjoyed the film. I'm sure this won't appeal to all tastes, especially if you're easily offended. I wouldn't say Sarah is nearly as good as George Carlin or Richard Pryor or other classic envelope-pushing comedians, but she is good and definitely has a unique comic style (not something I say about many comedians nowadays). I like the way she delivers her profane, offensive humor in such a mundane fashion. I think it makes the jokes even funnier. The flaw in her comedy, in my opinion, is that despite her significant intelligence and wit, Sarah does have a silly, absurd side. Some of the musical numbers definitely bordered on the silly side. Altogether, the film is hit-or-miss, thankfully with more hits. And of course, Sarah is quite easy on the eyes, which is part of the fun of seeing her in a starring role.