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Overall rating No ratings yet 0. How to write a great review Do Say what you liked best and least Describe the author's style Explain the rating you gave Don't Use rude and profane language Include any personal information Mention spoilers or the book's price Recap the plot. Describing much of his stand up career, especially the early days, as well as the beginnings of his film career, Fiend goes into great detail about the films he saw and how they affected him. Oswalt has an above average command of the language, is actually a very good writer.
His similes and metaphors are golden. One of the coolest things Oswalt does and it is pure Patton Oswalt, making an oblique media reference is to imagine a film festival based upon movies that might be in a perfect universe.
Oswalt creates movies for this list that would have been impossible to create, using actors and directors from different times and being used in ways that could not rationally happen, but this fun fantasy film festival did not even INTEND for that quadruple F alliteration! View all 9 comments. Jul 23, Jason Koivu rated it really liked it Shelves: A bipolar memoir on two of my favorite subjects, comedy and film. Comedian Patton Oswalt loves film.
There was a period in his life when he was on the fence as to which career path to take. Would he become a comedian or perhaps a director? Silver Screen Fiend takes us down his memory lane of movie binge watching and stand-up routine crafting in a sometimes odd and erratic autobio read. This book probably only deserves three stars, but I'm going with four, because of my love for the topics, but als A bipolar memoir on two of my favorite subjects, comedy and film.
This book probably only deserves three stars, but I'm going with four, because of my love for the topics, but also Patton spends many a page recalling awesome films in Los Angeles movie houses during the mids, the time that I'd just moved to LA. Call it a nostalgia star. The book starts a bit rough, almost schizophrenic-like.
It felt like he was intentionally setting the bar, trying to see who was willing and able to keep up and put up with his esoteric references and the flip-flopping from movies to comedy. This was well within my wheelhouse and even I was somewhat put off. However, once you get through the beginning, Patton settles down into some solid soliloquy on silver screen gems and personal anecdotes relating to stand-up. He details his early-years struggle and takes the reader through the start of his career in comedy, including some slap-in-the-face moments when he realized he needed to hone his craft or call it quits.
I remember seeing Patton in the '90s on Comedy Central specials and shows like Dr. He was an "angry comedian" back then in the vein of Sam Kinison or Lewis Black. Time has mellowed him some. Time and a whole lot of work has given him success. It was nice to watch his transformation and I was happy for him.
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She died in her sleep and left him to care for his daughter without her. I doubt we'll see much comedy or any new books from Patton for a while. So, I'll be going back and reading his old stuff and hoping he can pull himself through these tough times. Jan 08, Diane rated it liked it Shelves: This was a fun, manic memoir about Patton Oswalt's obsession with movies in the s.
I wanted to read this because I like Patton's comedy and I thought it would be a humorous audiobook. After seeing those, Patton started regularly attending the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, which showed classic films. Patton had decided he wanted to be a director, but inst This was a fun, manic memoir about Patton Oswalt's obsession with movies in the s.
Patton had decided he wanted to be a director, but instead of going to film school he was going to learn by watching a bunch of movies. Patton spent a good portion of the next four years inside movie theaters. He was working on his standup career at the time, so often he would see a movie and then head straight to a comedy club. Also in this time he got a few small roles, and there are some funny stories about learning to act.
But he admitted his movie obsession was taking up much of his time, often to the detriment of his relationships. Patton said he was finally able to break his addiction in after seeing Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, which he found incredibly disappointing, and realized he needed to take a break from watching so many movies.
Movies — the truly great ones and sometimes the truly bad — should be a drop in the overall fuel formula for your life. A fuel that should include sex and love and food and movement and friendships and your own work. All of it, feeding the engine. But the engine of your life should be your life. And it hits me, sitting there with my friends, that for all of our bluster and detailed, exotic knowledge about film, we aren't contributing anything to film.
While reading this memoir, I compared Patton's film obsession with my book obsession, and could see some parallels. I think we all have hobbies and passions that take up space in our lives, and it can be easy to neglect other things as we feed our addiction. I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to movie buffs and fans of Patton Oswalt. Feb 18, Madeline rated it really liked it Shelves: He acknowledged his damaged and worsening psyche and, in acknowledging it, made a deal.
He would be able to take newer, more original artistic conceptions out, would be able to capture them in paintings. His psyche found the deal acceptable. It let Vincent leave the room - the Night Cafe - with vistas and visions he hadn't come close to in his career. But something followed him out, and latched on to him like a virus, and he "Van Gogh entered a room in his mind when he painted The Night Cafe. But something followed him out, and latched on to him like a virus, and he was never the same. He was a better painter. I still have both ears. My chest cavity is bullet-free. But the concept of the Night Cafe - the room you enter, and then leave having been forever changed - is abiding, repeated event in my life.
Six times, so far, it's happened to me. All of them had to do with my creativity, and my imagination, and how I saw the world and my place in it. But Silver Screen Fiend is an odd book. It's not quite an in-depth look at how movies and pop culture shaped Patton Oswalt when he was starting out as a comedian in the 's, and it's not quite a straightforward memoir about how Oswalt went from a struggling comic in '90's Los Angeles to the genre-spanning icon he is today. People who go into this book expecting it to be these things will be disappointed.
There aren't nearly enough details about either Oswalt's stand-up career although there are plenty of great stories about the LA comedy scene in the '90's , and his obsession with movies is framed more by the iconic New Beverly Cinema where he saw the films, instead of the movies themselves.
With Silver Screen Fiend , Oswalt is trying to do something bigger than just share how he got his start in comedy, or talk about his favorite movies - although there's plenty of that. Instead, he's trying to make a statement about how he progressed from an obsession with watching what others created, to creating something himself. He uses the idea of a "Night Cafe" - an experience you have that affects you so deeply it changes the course of your life and remains imprinted on your soul - to show how his obsession with seeing classic films at the New Beverly made him the artist he is today: Pretty good trio of films to start off my education with, right?
‘Silver Screen Fiend’ by Patton Oswalt
Sunset Boulevard - a cynical, heartbroken writer, dragged to his doom by a true believer in the illusion of film. Ace in the Hole - a satanic, exploitative reporter who picks apart a dying man at the bottom of a pit in the hope that his career will rise back into the sun. And The Nutty Professor - an ignored nerd who's tempted by popular monstrosity. Obsession, darkness, and magical thinking.
Sitting in my apartment late in the night, penciling the star, date, and venue name next to The Nutty Professor in two film books, I will have no idea I've entered my fourth Night Cafe. It will be four years before I pull myself out of it. But this book acts as a warning to obsessive fans of any medium: Oswalt describes hanging out with friends and spending hours criticizing The Phantom Menace , and he realizes he's, "angry at George Lucas for producing something that doesn't live up to my exacting, demanding, ultimately non-participating standards, and failing to see that four hours of pontificating and connecting and correcting his work could be spent creating two or three pages of my own.
It's hard to create. And it hits me, sitting there with my friends, that for all our bluster and detailed, exotic knowledge about film, we aren't contributing anything to film. And then, once the group of us who moved down to Los Angeles got there, there was more bitching - about not getting bigger roles or better opportunities to pitch shows for ourselves. And we'd piss and moan and get comfortable - fuck, some of us built whole careers - pointing out how unfair and whimsical and chaotic the entertainment business was, how it rarely rewarded the truly talented.
None of us could see how it never rewarded the inert. View all 7 comments. I strongly recommend listening to this book in its audio format if possible. Oswalt narrates, of course. If you're familiar with any of his work, you'll use his voice, anyway, to narrate this as you read it but he does a better job.
I've got a crush on Patton Oswalt. I have for years. I don't even find all his comedy funny. There's just something about him. Maybe it's that he's kind of a pretentious shit sometimes but he knows he's a shit and he both plays that I strongly recommend listening to this book in its audio format if possible. Maybe it's that he's kind of a pretentious shit sometimes but he knows he's a shit and he both plays that up and calls himself out; it's like the weirdest humble arrogance ever, yet it's so endearing.
Maybe I've just got a thing for short, round men. Some of you have seen my husband Goodness knows it wasn't for love, as I am on a quest to kill the man the husband, not the author of this book In this biographical piece, Oswalt discusses his passion for movies which became an addiction for four years. All movies but especially the indies, the unknowns, and the old ones that had passed from the public eye. He had five movie guides he'd use to steer his movie-watching choices, checking each title off in each book after viewing.
He went a little insane over the whole thing and is left wondering whether or not his dreams of becoming a director via intense movie-watching research stunted his life for a time or helped him become the well-rounded not a fat joke, people persona he is now. Ok, that's not what he says, that's what I interpreted. He probably would have made the fat joke. I had a strange thing happen in my psyche while listening to this book.
I was hyper-aware that Oswalt's wife had just died weeks before. I felt like I should, I dunno, be respectful in some way?
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Not laugh at the funny things because it wasn't a laughing time? But then, this book is designed to be amusing and it would be mean to withhold my laughter during the times I wanted to laugh just because I have a misplaced sense of propriety which never exists when I actually need it because we all know Patton Oswalt monitors people who are listening to his audiobooks in their cars and can totally see if they're being solemn out of respect for his family's grief or being offensive by not laughing at his jokes.
Ok, so I have a problem. I did get a bit of an ego boost when I realized how many of the movies he talked about I had seen. I was surprised that, for the most part, it wasn't the big movies like "Casablanca" never seen it , "It's a Wonderful Life" never finished it , or "Gone with the Wind" tried 3 times, fell asleep twice and gave up about an hour in the last time but strange little titles, the weird black and white horror flicks and spaghetti westerns, things that used to be on TV when I was a kid and I somehow watched.
Also there was that moment of solidarity when he started trash-talking that fake Star Wars movie. I loved his thoughtful exploration into both his need to fill his mind with other people's stories via a celluloid format and his understandings of the movies, themselves which would then all turn on a dime when he started quipping about his insufferable rhetoric.
It's a fun book and an interesting look inside the messy-but-not mind of Patton Oswalt. If you don't like him, you probably won't enjoy this book. If you don't know who he is but you love movies, you'll probably like this book quite well. And if you're me, you'll really like it for all the reasons listed above. Again, I cannot say this strongly enough: Listen to the audiobook if you can.
View all 4 comments. Jul 03, Snotchocheez rated it really liked it. Bonus enjoyment points if you're from Los Angeles and are familiar with the "rep" and indie theaters Oswalt frequents, like the Nuart, 3. Bonus enjoyment points if you're from Los Angeles and are familiar with the "rep" and indie theaters Oswalt frequents, like the Nuart, the Vista with the ever-so-generous leg room and owner who often dresses up like characters from the movie screened , the Sunset 5, and of course, the cinephile's dream venue, the New Beverly with a rotating-every-other-day double bill of classics and acclaimed recent features to make "completists" mouths water, along with awful squeaky seats and an assortment of weirdos who provide color commentary throughout the movie.
Although I didn't really quite "get" Oswalt's movie-going addiction as described here from '99 something to do with his as of yet unfulfillled dreams of becoming a film director , this was a fun nostalgia trip for me as I was similarly addicted to movie-going about the same time as Oswalt was, devouring much of my free time and disposable income not unlike my reading addiction today.
Less compelling were as my GR friend Larry indicates the disjointed parts of the book when Oswalt digresses from the theme of the book and talks more about his stand-up comedy and sketch writing for "MadTV" careers. Still, this was a fun and funny look at a cinephile's obsession, and is definitely worth a read. Dec 04, Angie rated it it was ok Shelves: If you don't care that he watched Swingers in Encino in '95, then you're all set and can move along. I fell into the second category. I just didn't care. There are touches here and there about his career and friends but for the most part i Lots of filler.
There are touches here and there about his career and friends but for the most part it's just a long list of old movies in theaters you've never heard of before. I love lists as much as the next gal but if I had paid money for this book I would've been very disappointed. Otherwise enjoyable stories are bogged down with movie and other pop culture references that take away from the book rather than add to it. Oswalt is a funny and talented guy. Sadly, little of that comes across on this piece. View all 3 comments. I'm a cinephile and I've been known to enjoy this guys standup routines and his more serious acting too, it seemed like a no brainer the moment I saw it on the shelf in my favourite bookshop.
And you know what? It's fun, it's interesting, it's on a subject that I can connect with in a very real way and it's a story told in such a way that I can hear his standup voice coming through with each pause and punctuated anecdote. It's exactly what I thought it would be and more - the creative process an I'm a cinephile and I've been known to enjoy this guys standup routines and his more serious acting too, it seemed like a no brainer the moment I saw it on the shelf in my favourite bookshop.
Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt
Jan 29, Larry H rated it liked it. I'd rate this 3. I've been a big fan of Patton Oswalt for some time now. I think he's a pretty good actor he particularly gave a terrific performance in Charlize Theron's Young Adult a few years back , and I love his comedic observations as well. One friend of mine says that Oswalt and I share a similar sense of humor, although clearly only one of us is making a living off of it. One thing I didn't know I shared with Oswalt was an obsession with the movies.
Those of you who know me well I'd rate this 3. Those of you who know me well know I've been a huge movie fan for almost my entire life, and at the very least, see everything nominated, or in contention, for Oscars each year. And thanks to a year-long American film class in college, I consumed a healthy diet of classic movies as well. Oswalt's Silver Screen Fiend isn't your typical celebrity memoir, although it does chronicle a period of his life when he dealt with a serious addiction--to going to the movies.
From , while focusing on his career as a stand-up comic and dreaming of one day acting and directing, Oswalt went to the movies at least several times a week, often at the New Beverly Cinema, watching classics and lesser-known films as well as new releases. While watching movies brought him pleasure, expanded his cinematic horizons, and stimulated his creativity and his desire to one day see his work on the big screen, it also caused him a great deal of stress, as he planned comedy sets and other work, as well as social obligations when he had them around movie times.
And the constant diet of movie concessions wasn't good for his waistline either. As Oswalt provides background on each movie he saw, and places it in the context of his personal and professional life, he also chronicles the evolution of his career, from first getting the comedy bug while doing an internship in Washington, DC, to dealing with the ups and downs of good and bad performances, to his time both as a writer for MADtv and his tenure on television in The King of Queens. He struggles with jealousy of other comedians who achieve the success he craves, and worries about being able to realize his ambitions.
I enjoyed this book very much, as Oswalt did a great job informing, entertaining, and making me think. While I had heard of many of the movies he mentions in the book, there are a number I wasn't familiar with, so I enjoyed his perspective on those films. I did feel that the book was a little disjointed at times, as he occasionally shifts from one subject to another rather abruptly.
But in the end, I found this tremendously appealing. My favorite part of the book was a tribute to the late owner of the New Beverly Cinema, in which Oswalt imagined a month-long film festival, creating twists on popular movies with classic actors and directors. If you're more than simply an occasional movie watcher, or interested in the path some comedians follow toward success, you'll enjoy Silver Screen Fiend.
Oswalt writes with humor, heart, and a whole lot of film trivia. See all of my reviews and other stuff at http: Dec 30, matt rated it it was ok. His writing is compulsively readable but the book winds up being way too brief with filler galore! Many of the pages are simply lists yet seems to retread the same points over and over.
Jan 13, Sarah Pascarella rated it it was amazing.