The Good

What makes this show unique is Sarah Silverman's uncompromising look at the world.

The Bad

Ultimately, I just found the songs and Silverman's comic delivery to be annoying.

I had a bit of a tough time with Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic, mainly because this DVD is a pastiche of staged singing performances, mixed with Silverman performing her act. I found her songs so annoying that that has impacted why I probably will never watch this DVD again. I really wish this would have been a simple performance DVD. I know that Silverman fashions herself as a versatile performer but I just wanted to hear her tell jokes.

Sadly, when we are just shown her on stage talking into a microphone, there was something about her "stream of conscious" delivery that made me want to hurt myself. Sure, she has a lot of keen insights into her boyfriend (which I think is Jimmy Kimmel), sex and being Jewish, I just found her whole demeanor hard to swallow. She seemed like a comic trying to be hip and young. Nothing was off limits when maybe it should have been?

Features

Making of Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic

This is a pretty interesting "making of" that plays more as a companion piece to this film. We get to see Sarah in a different kind of light even though as a comedienne she always seems to be "on." Liam Lynch, the director, also talks about making the film and creating the overall environment that Sarah performs in. What I found so interesting about this segment was that it was like the movie in that it mixed and moved out of a bunch of different themes and segments.

Give the Jew Girl Toys Video

Okay, this video was where Silverman had wore me down to the point that I found this funny. Maybe it's because I am jewish? Maybe it's because after awhile one of her songs was going to touch a nerve other than disgust? Who knows... my point is that seeing Silverman yell at Santa about why everyone should gets toys and not just Christians (because as she points out, Santa has nothing to do with Jesus) was pretty darn funny.

Sarah's Aristocrats Performance

This is Silverman's performance of the Aristocrats joke from the movie The Aristocrats. Rather than get into it here, please feel free to click this link and read it for yourself.

Commentary Track

Director Liam Lynch and Sarah Silverman seem like good friends who have gotten together to watch the film they created together. While some of Lynch's comments made me cringe in embarrassment for the man, I liked hearing them discuss what was on screen, where the show was shot and what it was like making the videos. They are both very candid when discussing what is taking place on screen (ie. the skit in the old folks home), but they also are cognizant of the fact that what they are doing could be perceived as wrong.

Video

Aspect Ratio: Widescreen. It says that this movie is in widescreen but that's not the way it looked on my set. Shot on video Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic has a very full look about it. As it is mixed in with a bunch of other skits and performance footage, Liam Lynch seemed like he took extra special care to make sure that when we moved from Sarah on stage to Sarah in a skit, the result wasn't at all jarring to the viewers. Overall, this DVD seems like it was also delicately compressed to not make the video look harsh either.

Audio

Language: English 5.1. The audio was fairly standard on this release. I only had to turn my set up about halfway. Since this is a mix of a standup performance and music videos of Silverman singing, I was impressed that all the audio on these discs were leveled in the same way. Nothing too special but you can rest assured you'll be able to hear everything fine.

Package

Silverman stands in front of a purple background with white stars on this front cover. This is the exact same photo that was used to promote this movie when it was released. The back cover gives us more of the purple background, a description of what Jesus Is Magic is about, some pictures from the movie (which don't look too good actually), a credits list and technical specs. As far as comedy DVDs go, this one presents itself more as a movie than a straight up comedy performance.

Final Word

As I was watching this DVD, I couldn' t help but ask myself the following question:

If Silverman was a man, would I be more receptive to the show and the musical numbers?

On the musical numbers front, I can answer that with an emphatic no. I am just not a fan of comedians doing "funny" songs and this goes doubly for people like Jack Black. So, on that front the answer is no. However, maybe hearing Silverman talk about giving her boyfriend oral sex is so jolting to me because I am hearing her say it. Now, when Eddie Murphy was doing stand up, he mentioned such things and I didn't mind, so perhaps I would have liked this more if Silverman was man?

All things considered, I am just not a fan of her brand of thirtysomething comedy. This probably has a lot to do with myself being a thirtysomething, but be that as it may, Jesus Is Magic wasn't magic for me.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic was released February 11, 2005.