Silver Screen Fiend
Patton Oswalt
2015
Scribner
New York City
Review by BRAD WEISMANN
It’s riveting to be made to understand late in life that you
are nuts. Such was the initial fallout of my reading comedian Patton Oswalt’s second
memoir. Gee, I would never have characterized my arts obsessions and need to
see all of every subject’s work, my snotty cineaste pretentiousness, as counterproductive. Ulp.
In “Silver Screen Fiend,” Oswalt hits the trifecta – he takes
a life-sapping obsession and simultaneously exorcises it, celebrates it, and
exploits it. It’s like this: Oswalt went through a four-year period of
compulsive movie-watching, during a period when he added comedy writing for
television and sitcom acting to his resume, finding his way through the entertainment
ecosystem. We get to sit through hundreds of nights of weird flicks with him,
and track him as he stumbles through Hollywood.
“Silver Screen Fiend” is well-written and entertaining,
chock-full of the baroquely couched and erudite observations that are Oswalt’s
trademark. He zooms in and out of significant events, deftly analyzing the social
dynamics of the key comedy venues that enabled his growth as a performer, and
cracking so wise about his errors and delusions that you feel a friendly,
kindred spirit is talking to you through the pages.
And, film junkies, there’s more! Oswalt has the gonads to
throw in a program he concocts of films that never got made, but wouldn’t it be
cool if they had? Nice. Along with the four-year list of all the movies he saw,
and when and where he saw them. Hey, he acknowledges he had a problem. It’s
still fun to riffle through it.
Caveat: I was a comic for years and I still report extensively
about film, so both parallels of narrative here fascinate me. He has a lot of
wisdom to share with young and/or aspiring artists – basically, quit bitching
and do your work. We could all use that little reminder from time to time.
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