No, I'm sorry, I have to disagree with the rave reviews. I'm a Sarah fan. She's one of the smartest and funniest out there. But this is the wrong direction. There's a lot to enjoy here. Not the belly laugh kind. The kind of thing she excels at, discussing things that actually sound real in her life and posing them in a funny and revelatory way, pointing out the boundaries of our artificially constricted moralities. Fine. I'm up with that. What is different here is her self consciousness. She's a woman who has a great range of facial expressions and usually can't talk without her arms and hands being part of the conversation. Did someone tell her that's not cool? Her style is more mannered in this one, her pauses more mechanical, her facial tics more like an actor's. She was great the way she was. She doesn't need to be slicker. I liked it that sometimes she would be doing a bit and the audience wouldn't seem to be getting it and she'd be so surprised at their dumbness she'd back track to try and get them to see what was funny. Yeah, maybe a bad idea in personal terms. Not slick but human. It was 'the new' cool. Showed how sparky she was and how vulnerable at the same time, that she wanted to be telling you something. Maybe this was a performance on a night she wasn't in her best place. The real Sarah Silverman is better than this.
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leiaxsakura4 June 2017
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Sarah Silverman delivers a compelling, funny routine which closes with her personal medical emergency. First, she starts off the show with metal detectors and death threat. While the audience laughed heartily, I felt a little discombobulated. It's the times we live in and that particular issue is hard to laugh at. Although if I was in the audience, the laughing could be quite cathartic. Anyways, she quickly moves on. With complaining Jew and laser hair removal, the routine builds up well. There is good flow and consistent laughs. Of course, there is plenty of abortion jokes amid the present political climate. At one point, she asks for any religious audience members and only one Lutheran volunteered. The medical emergency is quite funny and there is a fun video proof of its reality to close out the special. In the end, this is standard Silverman comedy with her deadpan delivery and outrageous material. It is a solid one hour show.
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Quinoa198424 June 2017More words: I don't know if Silverman is the deepest or most profound comic out there, but when she makes me laugh its cathartic; her story about her sisters little "accident" in college *is* so great I want to rate this higher. Some little sections lag though, and I only chuckled through her life/death story. On the other hand, there's never a moment Silverman isn't charming in some way, which works to her advantage when she tells the filthiest and/or most (self) deprecating anecdotes. She knows how to construct jokes and reel an audience in first, and be a provocateur second (the opposite of the recent Schumer Leather special). This year, once you've gotten through Louis CK and Chappelle, I imagine this will come a good 3rd or in the top five of sharpest, silliest, dirtiest and (at key times) insightful comedy specials.
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Although very popular, Silverman is an acquired taste in terms of her style, her comedy, and her politics. I think too often she relies on the shock factor juxtaposed with her fresh-faced attractive appearance, but mostly she has a fine wit behind so much of what she does. With this show there was a decent mix of personal reflection combined with that same shock factor material. Although she has some digs at Trump, the show wisely stays away from political humor but mostly takes from her personal situation and memories of her family. In this way the show is quite interesting, although it perhaps reduces laughs at times.
Silverman seems a little different than I've seen her before. She felt very static and limited in her movements while on stage. In terms of her interaction with the audience, these also felt a little unnatural, and I wasn't always sure that it worked when she stopped her own show to look back at a line etc. In this way it was not a wholly successful show, and although I enjoyed it, I concede it was not as funny as I hoped, nor was Silverman as engaging. -
jegd-847-6314072 June 2017The first thing I happily noticed about 'Sarah Silverman: A Speck of Dust' was that she was engaging with the audience. She often plays aloof & dumb with her jokes, but this time she brought the audience in on the conversation.
I also appreciated that most of the jokes weren't recycled from old interviews & her social media posts. I want to say there is "new material" here, but we basically know the story she tells. It involves the parts of her life that made the news, but she offers her side of the story and adds heart to it. I enjoy this better than past stand-ups where she makes going to the stage into a short film about how silly she is. For a quick observation she was more self-aware here than in past shows.
She's witty in her delivery, self-congratulatory in the political puns, one-liners were meme worthy and I counted probably 3 jokes she's been pushing over the past 10 years.
This was a very loving Sarah Silverman. When she speaks from her heart, you know it's genuine and people love her for that. She much more the experienced comedian here. The jokes were gold, the humor was authentic, and she even poked fun at the way she segued between each new joke; "Put a pin in that for a second" ... "You're killing it, Sarah" A real treat comes at the end credits scene that show her real life epiglottis medical emergency as it happened. I don't know who filmed it, but it reminded me of my own life events when my Father had his heart attack. Watching her make light of the situation and getting her loved ones to laugh along is exactly how my family handles scares.
I know a lot of people might not know the danger of epiglottitis; It's a severe life-threatening condition that could have cut off her airway. But there she was cracking jokes about it. Bravo, kid. -
I'm a fan of Sarah Silverman. She's funny, knows how to make jokes about herself or/and her backgrounds, and she's not afraid of making fun of delicate subjects. I wouldn't say this was her best show but to me it was funny enough to be entertained and that's the only thing I want when watching a stand-up comedian. I'm not a big fan of the pausing she does alot. It looks too much like she's thinking about her lines and so it doesn't seem very natural to me. A little pause everynow and then is fine, to make a point, but with her it sometimes looks too forced and she doesn't need that. For the rest I think she has a good stage presence. Maybe she's not in my top of stand-up comedians but I still enjoy watching her.
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vpelss25 June 2017This was pretty much word for word the same as the show I saw. It was great the second time too! I don't get the negative reviews from Silverman's fans. There is still vulgarity. Maybe not enough for them? Maybe there is too much social commentary in the jokes. I think she is going in the right direction.
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I usually avoid Sarah Silverman. I appreciate her as comic most of the time, but I just don't agree with her opinions. This was Sarah at her best. I laughed out loud, cringed slightly at her mostly-toned-down crudeness, and she didn't upset me with her opinions once. But the part I enjoyed the most was the credits. Here, I think we saw the real Sarah Silverman and I found her to be a delightful, warm-hearted, intrinsically funny and wise lady.
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rzajac3 June 2017Watching this reminds me of tracking young artists in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area (DFW) years ago. Yes, I'm aware that the real action was happening elsewhere (like Austin); don't lord it over me. But it'll suffice to make my point.
Checking in with talented folks (wherever you may be) should be like this: It should be possible to see the performers mutate, morph, and transform--every show should be different.
A Speck of Dust felt like this. Sarah's still Sarah... but she's changing. And that's so welcome and refreshing to see. She's taking her time... it's like she's becoming more "folksy"... like a (only slightly) edgier Garrison Keillor--side note: People who actually tuned in Keillor know how truly edgy he could be!
Anyway: In this show, Sarah's a standing, gesticulating, slow-turning comic kaleidoscope! Loved her stories; touched by her occasional insights; in awe of her moxie.
Check it out. -
I have loved much of Sarah's work in the past, but her newest special disappointed me. It deserves a 5 out of 10 because it was funny and witty about 50% of the time. The other 50% was a mixture of political talking points and misinformed scientific facts. I did laugh out loud a few times but the majority of jokes were poorly written, especially by her standards. I think I counted around 5 complex joke premises, all of which were very well executed, but the rest fell flat.
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With female stand-ups falling like flies these days (the tenuous careers of Griffin and Schumer or just plain dropping dead like Joan Rivers) Sara Silverman steps up to try and fill the void. Instead of staunching she instead exacerbates with the same below the waist gross humor that Amy Schumer's last special spewed to the detriment of her career. Playing in what looks like a small community theatre to an audience of well wishers she gets brief blocks of polite laughter from a crowd that never really gets raucous with the material or her dead pan delivery. Showing little energy and working off of a pad on a stool her timing is poor her projection slurred at times. By the halfway mark she is running on fumes as the repetitive vaginal, anal, rape and cum jokes no longer shock and the energy level, low from the outset, begins to creep. The audience enthusiasm never rises much from the outset as the laughter and applause never builds but stays so uniform that you get the feeling at times of sitcom canned laughter to bulk up Silverman's anemic performance.
Once a decent sit-com supporting actress Silverman is no A list stand-up comedian. The cutesy little girl routine in her 20s has grown old and stale now that she is in her mid 40s and there is a reason she played in a band box, her following is few. Still, she came out swinging like the ill fated Goodyear Blimp Schumer did in her Leather Special with "edgy" humor such as her sister crapping herself or where her boyfriend puts his hand after giving her digital anal stimulation. Given her fecal obsession Sara must be quite pleased with this fine mess of a comedy special, it's pretty crappy. -
jingoosock10 November 2018This isn't a review, just a comment on Silverman preparing a joke by mentioning the landing on Mars in 2012. Someone laughs in the audience and she makes a little remark on that. My nerdy theory: the guy who laughed at the wrong moment knew that we landed on Mars back in 1976, but Silverman made it sound like 2012 was the first time.
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fccffrfcffdrfr23 June 2017sarah needs to rethink her career choice of stand-up comedy and stick with material that somebody else wrote for her. This stand-up is not funny or entertaining at all. There are some female comics I really enjoy that can pull off raunchy comedy with a lot of humor. sarah was just raunchy to be raunchy and not funny at all. After watching this I felt like Ace Ventura after he found out Einhorn was a man. Had to vomit, burn the clothes I was wearing, try to plunger the show out of my head, and just sat in the shower trying to wash this show away. So bad. So awful. Doesn't even deserve 1 star.
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admalice-5485023 June 2017This is what I've been waiting for; the moment when tries to do her own material rather than stealing other comedian's work. It's been well documented how she has repeatedly ripped off other people's routines and passed it off as her own work.
Not today folks! That's right! What you got to see was all that she was, a thief and a hack who, when tries to be a comedian of her own material, falls flat on butt.
The truth is out, and while she is blaming trolls for all the negative comments and one-star ratings, many of them (most if not all) come from her own followers. She was horrible and unwatchable. Many reported lasting only 5-10 minutes into her nightmare special before turning it off. -
campelodemagalhaes4 December 2021Silverman doing her self righteous usual.
Watch only if you have no self esteem.
I watched to confirm the disaster and yes, it is as bad as expected. I will avoid this self proclaimed "comedian" for some time, and I advise you do the same. -
godwinj-7051314 December 2018Sarah Silverman was once decently funny, now all she is left with is jokes that have her making little girl voices about peeing herself and awkward moments where she is completely out of touch with what makes people smile and laugh. Was hard to watch all the way through, but not the worst thing ever.
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ersbel22 April 2018I get it: it's hard to be controversial. A century ago that might mean tar and feathers or burned at the stake, depending to the place you are living. Decades ago, even with the constitutional protections unique to the United States that meant days or even weeks in jails. Today the penalty is simply money: low popularity on social media and the biggest networks not signing contracts with you.
Well, Sarah is trying really hard to have them both: the controversy and the big contracts. And in the end all she gets is the money. Good for her, yet a flat show. -
juanflara22 December 2017Save time with this "special", just go to the last 10 minutes, it's the only interesting part. I had only seen Sarah Silverman on TV sketches and most of them were funny, but if this is her standup quality, then she should improve A LOT or just write for someone else.