Neddy Merrill Not funny ha-ha but funny no-one-heard-me-snicker-at-that-right? With Don Rickles now eight-five years old, Sam Kinison ironically dead at the hands of 16 year old drunk driver and Andrew "Dice" Clay's shallow talent reservoir completely exhausted, a gap exists in the market for highly offensive race-based comedy. This movie presents Sarah Silverman's staking out of that ground. Silverman produces none of the show-stopping belly laughs that Kinison could in the years before cocaine and alcohol convinced him that singing along to early 70's rock songs constituted entertainment. Viewers will find little in Silverman's act worth sharing with coworkers at the water cooler next day (Kinison's fans still remember certain of his material). This is not to suggest that the movie lacks entertainment value or that some lines don't elicit a minor titter. Rather, Silverman's talent is in getting the audience on her side with smart, politically incorrect observations and then leading them to a place so improper that they their fear overwhelms their smug hipness. She also does an excellent job of using her innocent good looks to amp up the shock value. Her attempt to provide value for money by including some videotaped vignettes along with footage of a Los Angeles show is largely misguided as the skits, like her ill-fated MTV show, feel forced. Some of them may have worked had she inflicted them on real audiences - Borat-like (for example, an extraordinarily offensive song sung to supposed nursing home residents may have actually been funny if Silverman actually went in and assaulted the elderly in a real nursing home). In short, far better stand-up comedy videos exist out there (most of George Carlin's stuff) but Silverman brings an original voice to shock-comedy audiences.

moonspinner55 Sarah Silverman--with her gummy smile, coltish stance, and clear voice which bubbles up from deep within her chest--wants to come on like a huggable shock comedienne, yet she's more performance artist than stand-up personality. Cleverly and carefully (one may say 'precisely') dropping taboo words into her stories, Silverman gets laughs by pretending to lead the audience in one direction and then undercutting those expectations with a surprising low-keyed zinger. Silverman doesn't overwork a punchline--which are often nestled in the context of her stories anyhow--although she returns to older topics too often. Also, she relies far too much on pseudo-cute facial expressions and aw-shucks body language to soften the blows of her words, though the topics (9/11, the Holocaust, AIDS, vaginal sex versus anal sex) are tiptoed through in a facetious yet frisky manner. The fantasy edits, imagining Sarah in different manners of celebrity, work well, better than the purposefully-wooden prologue and epilogue with friends. Still, one expects to laugh more with such touchy material. Silverman is so laid-back and blasé, it's clear to viewers she is giving them a made-up creation. Other shock comics manage to make audiences feel as if they are hearing something true, but this personality that Silverman is displaying (playful, naughty, grounded, unaffected) is unabashedly artificial. This is entirely deliberate on Silverman's part, yet is tends to render her act phony: smoke and mirrors prodding at the national funny bone. *1/2 from ****

walking_dead00 I gave it a 6. 6 is pretty damn high in my books. SS is a extremely nasty old gal. she will make fun out of the most touchy thing she can think of.if you can somehow get past all that and just watch her then you'll have a good laugh. she's super witty and thats what makes for good times. she knows what she is saying and 1/2 her act is about going deeper and deeper into touchy territory. if you don't laugh in the first 10mins after her first song then just switch it off because you'll get more and more offended.I'm going to look for more from her.later.

ray-280 What a waste.Here we have a physically stunning, brilliant, witty, pointed comedienne with a clear understanding of politics, and what does she do with it? Nothing of lasting value. Maybe she's saving that for later in her career, but as her looks go (and they will, as she's in her thirties), no one will be around to listen if she waits too long.The routines were funny, she's competent when it comes to comedy, but she is pure establishment, never crossing establishment lines, engaging in "acceptable unacceptable" humor that is cutting edge only on the surface, but she remains a political lightweight despite presenting herself with an air of a political relevance when she has none. Yet. This could change at any time she chooses to let loose, but she's still on the side of the tracks with the wrong people, appearing offensive but not really striking at our truest of raw nerves or sparking any meaningful debate or change. She is capable of all of this and more.What could be the female Lenny Bruce is more like the female Steve Martin. Enjoyable, but missing her destiny every time she refuses to confront the genuine wrongs in society with a serious streak that separates the historically relevant comedians (like Dennis Miller) from the bubble-gum comedy which is hers, even if the gum has a more complex flavoring than most.In this show, you'll hear one "offensive" joke after another that isn't really offensive, and while it speaks the unspoken, it doesn't show us any new sides of ourselves, nor move us towards any possible change or revolution. Sarah Silverman is too beautiful and too brilliant to leave anything less as her legacy.Memo to Sarah: get serious, get loud, get in the faces of people in power, and let them try to combat a hottie who is unafraid of changing the status quo. She could be the voice of her generation if she wanted to. I suspect she's on her way there anyway, but it is clear from this work that she has not yet arrived. It'll be amazing when she does.