"Van Gogh entered a room in his mind when he painted The Night Cafe. 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

A tedious and rambling affair, somewhat redeemed by the fact that the audio book was narrated by the author himself. Patton's self-diagnosed film addiction seems like a false premise designed to support several auto-biographical stories about his start in the comedy scene during the 90s. The name-dropping is fun at times, and the film-related tidbits are mildly interesting, but the whole narrative floats around the central premise without really ever attacking it, leaving the reader overall un-s...

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. Trust me.True story: I've got a crush on Patton Oswalt. I have for years. Yeeeeeaaaars. 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...

Patton Oswalt is one of my top five all-time favorite stand-up comedians. That said, most of this book isn’t funny, so don’t expect this to be a few hours of belly laughs. However, all the things Patton is passionate about I am also passionate about. In that way, this was like listening to a monologue of someone I’d consider a friend because of our similar interests and because I respect his opinion and insight. Obviously, given the name of the book, he talks a lot about film, but also art – art...

Lots of filler. Around 30% of this book is a list of the movies he watched over a period of time in the 1990s. That's it. Just a list. If you care that Patton Oswalt watched The English Patient in 1997 at the Vista Theater then you should definitely read this. 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...

UPDATE: Given what has happened with Patton's wife since I wrote this review, it all seems a bit petty now. I'm only leaving it here because there are a few comments, and if I delete it they won't make sense. TL;DR of the review: I wound up reading this book for a weird reason, and it was alright.----Why did I read Patton Oswalt's "Silver Screen Fiend"? To answer that, I have to first tell a bit of a story.A few years back I wrote a blog post introducing a new order for watching the Star Wars fi...

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...

I'd rate this 3.5 stars.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 we...

I figured this book would be jam-packed with geeky jokes, but it is more of a self-deprecating memoir of a time in Patton Oswalt's life when he was addicted to movies and thought he was going to be an amazing film maker. He does talk some film nerdery in this book, but the majority is him discussing the mistakes he made in his early years. I think it's great that he is so comfortable talking about his past mistakes and failures, and he does it in such a way that it's entertaining to read about.

(I received a free advance copy of this via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)Comedian and actor Patton Oswalt wrote this unflinching account of his battle with addiction during the late ‘90s, but he didn’t spend his days cooking meth with bikers or whoring himself out for crack. Poor Patton was a movie junkie who found plenty of dealers to get him high in the theaters of Los Angeles.A double feature of Billy Wilder films at the New Beverly Cinema was the gateway drug that led Patton d...

3.5 starsPrerequisites for enjoying Patton Oswalt's Silver Screen Fiend: either be a big Oswalt fan (I'm not; I've never seen a single episode of "The King of Queens", never seen his standup comedy routine, wasn't even aware until reading this book he had a small part in one of my fave movies, PT Anderson's "Magnolia") or be, like Oswalt, an addicted cinephile. Bonus enjoyment points if you're from Los Angeles and are familiar with the "rep" and indie theaters Oswalt frequents, like the Nuart,

Oswalt is my favorite type of fellow English major -- constantly searching for the connections between experiences, events, and people, but without being twee, self-serving, or overly theoretical. Instead, he roots out these connections (often across time, space, and medium) and makes thoughtful insights as to those beneath-the-surface ties that bind us. The fact that he does so humbly and hilariously makes his company even more enjoyable. Chapter 8 made me laugh so hard that I woke my husband u...

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/3.5 StarsLet me begin by saying I was waaaaaaaay not smart enough for this book. I am 100% unapologetically a pop culture aficionado and most certainly not a “sprocket fiend” . . . . I also have to admit that I have only watched a couple of episodes of The King of Queens (and there’s a WHOLE lot of baggage about the why on that one in the form of “why does the woman in these couple comedies always have to be portrayed as some shrie...

Not sure what Patton was after with this; it struggles as both memoir and film history/analysis. 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. On a related note, I hope the culture and/or comedians develop some self-awareness about how, in 2015, it has become increasingly dull for non-comedians to wax on about every last detail about "the biz."

Patton Oswalt was born in January of 1969. Later that summer, on July 20, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first two humans to walk around on the surface of the moon – in what some pundits have declared was the high water mark for western civilization. Beginning the downward slide, I showed up in September of that year.All that to say that Oswalt and I are the same age and we were both raised in the suburbs and attended high school in the 1980s (both graduating in 1987). We both liked c...

This was a fun, manic memoir about Patton Oswalt's obsession with movies in the 1990s. I wanted to read this because I like Patton's comedy and I thought it would be a humorous audiobook. Which it was.The films that got Patton started on his movie addiction were Sunset Boulevard and Ace in the Hole, both by Billy Wilder. 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...

Patton Oswalt is a national treasure! Nothing like a heartfelt comedian's audiobook, narrated by the comedian himself, which isn't so much laugh out loud funny (although it is sometimes. My favorite is The Day the Clown Cried story) as much as a personal memoir about a classic film addiction overlapping with coming up in the 90s comedy scene. The personal growth, the Hollywood stories both about his contemporaries and about his deep love of 20th century film. He never did make it as a director,

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...

If you’ve ever been addicted to some form of media like books or movies (and heaven knows we’re on Goodreads, so…) you need to read this book. I love “behind the scenes” books about film or writing processes. This book is beautiful scene in the life of a comedian, struggling actor and movie-OBSESSED man. Patton Oswalt watched almost a movie (or a double feature) every night for a year and ticked it off in five books of his concerning cult classics. I LOVE this book. I love the writing and I love...

I kept wavering between rating this book 2 or 3 stars, and finally settled on 3 just because I love Patton Oswalt. This is a memoir covering Oswalt's rise to fame in the comedy circuit. There's nothing really new here. He did stand up over and over and over until he was able to meet the right people who offered him TV and movie roles. He talks about his love of movies as well, and there are a few funny anecdotes, but as far as celebrity memoirs go this is pretty forgettable.