User reviews

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.

Sarah does a stand-up performance in front of an intimate crowd. It's the HBO 39, 39 guests invited to the Largo at the Coronet. It's highly inappropriate. It's often sexual and sometimes religious and at certain perfect moments, both. It's Sarah Silverman. You get what you expect.

The challenge with this kind of review is whether to review the comic or to review the material or just throw in the towel and do both.

A one of a kind comic. So real it hurts. The first thing you notice is that she is a natural beauty, even when she is not trying. This somewhat distracts from the material, but she knows, and she works it. So it is part of the act.

The next thing you notice is that her material so deep, so experimental, so I-don't-care-if-u-laugh that you are compelled to listen that much more carefully, to try to capture the experience not just the joke.

Like most comics operating in the rarefied air she prefers, she could do easier (and funnier) material, but she would probably sooner have a root canal. Or whatever the "painful female equivalent" of a root canal is.

A few years back, a brave film-maker did a documentary on the one "forbidden" joke that comics only ever told to each other, but never to the public. Not kidding. A real joke involving a lot of ad-libbing which every comic had a variation of, but the public had never heard of.

The film-maker then went to a dozen or so top comics and had them do their version of the joke on camera. Some of the best comics in the world participated. But Silverman was generally considered to have been the funniest in the film, not merely because she told the joke but because she managed to do a segue where the joke (supposedly) triggered a suppressed memory. "My agent raped me," she said deadpan to the camera, halfway through the joke. "I just remembered that my agent raped me." Now, that does not SOUND funny but, in context, it was drop dead funny.

And so it is with this special. If you get into the context and pay attention more to the artist than the material (which is not always the way comedy works) it is quite a treat.

Carlin was like that at the end of his life. He could do "funny" but did not want to. He had things he wanted to say and if you paid for a concert, you were ^%^**^ well going to hear them.

Same here.

We Are Miracles was only the second show that I watched from Sarah Silverman. It wasn't bad at all, good enough to watch at least once. I preferred the Jesus Is Magic show though. Her jokes are always a bit sarcastic and very daring and that's a good thing. Her material in this show isn't that much more different than in the other show that I saw from her, I guess it's her signature for her sense of humor. To me the show could just be the stand-up-comedy itself, without the intro and song that is also in this show. Not only is Sarah Silverman candy for the eye, but she's also funny and what else is more important in a woman than her looks? Sarah Silverman is a woman many men dream of and that's a compliment to her.

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.

Sarah is a tremendous, quick witted comedian. Has been a long time.

In this special, though, I thought she could've done better with the content. Of course she's got the delivery down.

Lots of offensive/divisive/sensitive/controversial bits that just didn't ring as belly laughs. I hate to be THAT guy, about comedians.

Just saying, Sarah's good! If she would slightly make the content a little less uncomfortable, and 6's ratings jump to 9.9's overnight. She's way talented to pull that off and be THE top rated comedian.

I won't miss her next special, "Someone You Love," on 'max,' formerly HBO.

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.

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 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.

I first learned of Sarah Silverman when I saw ads for "The Sarah Silverman Program" in 2007 or 2008.* I then saw some of her skits and laughed out loud. Her HBO special "Sarah Silverman: We Are Miracles" features her in the Largo telling all manner of edgy stories. I particularly liked Silverman's memory of being in the shower with her mom. It just goes to show that humor really does work best when the person is allowed to say whatever s/he wants. Above all, Silverman is among the best that there is in comedy, always letting everyone have it equally.

*I later learned that she co-starred in "Bulworth", "There's Something About Mary" and "Evolution", all of which I had seen years earlier.