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SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGICTastelessness as an art form.Running time: 72 minutes. NR (strong profanity, offensive humor). At the Union Square, 13th Street and Broadway.
SARAH Silverman, whose contribution to "The Aristocrats" was a memorable routine about being raped by Joe Franklin, continues pushing the envelope with cheerfully self-mocking rants about race, religion and sex in the often-hilarious performance film "Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic."
Most of her shocking contributions here are similarly unprintable in a family newspaper - she's simply willing to offend anyone, including blacks, Asians, Mexicans, gay people, the disabled and her fellow Jews with explicit riffs on subjects ranging from anal sex to the Holocaust ("my grandmother was in one of the better camps").
While a few are clunkers - she suggests American Airlines promote itself as "first through the towers," an unfunny reference to 9/11 - Silverman's batting average is remarkably high, though not all audiences will be endeared when she says, "I hope the Jews did kill Christ. I'd do it again."
Silverman uses more than a few racist epithets, but she distances herself - and makes it safer for the audience - by poking fun at her own onstage persona. As a less-than-brilliant narcissist given to kissing her reflection in the mirror backstage, she makes pronouncements like "I don't care if you think I'm racist. I just want you to think I'm thin."
She uses her attractiveness and her smile to get away with lines like, "I was raped by a doctor - which is so bittersweet for a Jewish girl." She also performs several smutty musical numbers, including "Amazing Grace" and "You Are My Sunshine."
The comedian and her director, Liam Lynch, have framed about an hour's worth of concert footage with bogus backstage scenes to pad this out to feature length - but "Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic" works best when this equal-opportunity offender is on the stage.
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