FINAL CUT: Que Sera Sarah

For my birthday, my wife and I had some delicious crepes at one of Chicago's finest restaurants, a quiet little French eatery called La Creperie. We opted for the coq au vin dinner crepe, and created our own dessert crepe with a banana filling and chocolate sauce. It's a marvelous little place, and the next time you're in the Windy City, it's definitely worth a visit.

This is not specifically relevant to the issue at hand. It's just a really good restaurant, so I'm happy to share the good word.

Anyway, after dinner, we headed over to the movie theater across the street, where we intended to take in a double feature. Alas, the wise guys at the Landmark Century have figured out that if you space out the films, it's much harder to stick around for anotherflick. A short-sighted policy, if you ask me. Fewer screenings means fewer tickets sold, and no Dots sales. But it's their loss. And ours, since we were not treated to a nightcap of Good Night, and Good Luck, and at to settle for a meal consisting entirely of Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic.

Sarah Silverman is a stand-up comedian with a two-pronged attack: first, she stands there looking absolutely beautiful, with a sweet smile and a faraway glint in her eye. Second, she starts speaking, and the gleeful nastiness of the words coming out of her mouth fully hit you. In the film's prologue, she tells her friends about the show she has written: "It's about the Holocaust...and AIDS...but it's funny." Like the gun that must be fired before the end of the play, she intends to make good on her promise.

Silverman is a refreshing comedian. Even Chris Rock is doing material about the differences between women and men. Meanwhile, Silverman opens with a joke about being raped. It's easy to imagine her sitting around thinking of taboo topics, and then setting out to puncture them. Much of the laughter she earns is at the sheer audacity of her subject matter. A much-quoted joke from the movie goes, "When God gives you AIDS -- and God does give you AIDS -- then I say...make lemonAIDS." She's cute, shocking, and satirical all at once.

The problem with the film is the same with every comedy concert film made since HBO went on the air: why on earth would you go to a movie theater to see it? (Unless you were planning on watching another movie about McCarthyism right afterwards.) We're talking about watching someone talk for an hour and a half. Silverman seems aware of the problem, so to spice things up, she sprinkles in a few amusing musical numbers. The best of these finds Silverman in go-go boots and a That Girl hairdo voicing a series of sweet, racist nothings. "I love you more than black people don't tip," she trills. It's very funny, but it breaks up the flow of the routine. From what can be seen, she's singing these songs as part of her concert, but we're getting the full music-video production. The pieces are artlessly slammed together, without so much as the smoothness you might find in an episode of Pulp Comics.

In the end, that's the real problem with Jesus Is Magic: it doesn't deserve to be a movie. Silverman is very funny, and has genuine screen presence. But the movie turns out to be a lousy vehicle for her talent. More to the point, it's just not something you have to see on a big screen. Some of her colleagues, like Jack Black and David Cross, have found success in the medium. Hopefully, she will too. With a different movie.