Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles

I gave it 5 stars, because I think the director did a good job, and technically speaking that deserves a good score. I gave it just 5 stars, because Sarah Silverman's comedy is not for everyone, I didn't even smile throughout the show, most of the jokes are redundant, very easy to figure out. She talks too slowly and that just kills it for me. She does use profanity in language, which I assume is a very different form of it considering the works of George Carlin and Louis C.K. I just think it's not for everyone.

I didn't discover Silverman until her Comedy Central show and then, of course, realized she'd been around for a while. I'll say upfront I'm a fan so when I saw this was coming out I was really looking forward to it. Well, I loved it. Silverman's insightful, crude, awkwardly shocking, highly structured approach to comedy always gives me a bucket of LOLs. Like Louis CK she approaches some subjects with the intent to disturb. 911, rape jokes, gang bangs, etc. are not meant to make you go "it's funny because it's true!" Rather they're kind of ushering a meta level where the spin is "It's funny because it's AWWWWKward." Anyway, her choice to film in a small venue adds an intimacy and texture that makes the special stand out from most other HBO specials and if you like funny, insightful comics, Tivo it.

I feel sorry for the people that don't.

I saw this routine when she came to Australia a few years ago. I laughed so hard my eyes closed and I stopped seeing what was going on and I couldn't stop laughing to open them again.

While some new material would have been welcome, this was still pretty great. Hilarious, unpredictable, and occasionally poignant.

Here's where Sarah shines! Really: If you want to really know about this gifted, intelligent, articulate woman, watch this show. Silverman's always aiming for that biggest of breaks; a key role in a truly great production... and she's had a few breaks and come sorta close.

But, in the end, when she takes the stage for stand-up, she gets to be her own woman--and what a woman that is! And she slices and dices that medium like a Vegematic on steroids. Thank Someone there manages to be an opportunity to watch her shine, and "We Are Miracles" is a great, great showcase.

Sarah Silverman is a comedian that's always been around, but an artist I never directly got into by chance. I watched a few episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program, which was too obscure for my taste. But I always enjoyed her cameo in Judd Apatow's Funny People, Louie and thought she gave an effective supporting performance in Sarah Polley's Take This Waltz. I enjoyed clips of her standup online, but have not seen her perform a complete comedy hour till now.

The decision to shoot the special at the Largo Comedy Club in front of 39 people is a great one. Silverman never looks far off into the distance or above to a balcony booth. There's no big giant TV screen of her in the background for the cheap seats. The intimacy of the Largo lends itself for Silverman's raunchy off-the-wall random tangent comedy, giving her much more freedom to roam from topic to topic without transitions. "I don't need segue ways." Silverman quips, "The brain doesn't work that way."

Some of the joke highlights were a childhood story of how her older sister used to scare her, sin atonement in Christianity and a bit about the Make A Wish foundation. It's nice how much politically incorrect jokes she gets away with, showing an affable innocent girly persona can really go a long way to make hard topics durable.

The whole experience is more akin to a live show, as Silverman is able to milk laughs from silences and even counter critique audience reactions when they aren't up to par. It's always awkward when comedians do audience interaction in big theater shows and this completely fixes that. The reactions from the 39 people create a more potent, immersive connection to Silverman's perspective. And making 39 people laugh, after all, is much harder than making 200 people laugh.