Silver Screen Fiend, by Patton Oswalt

Every once in a while I'll be out in public and I'll hear someone shout out "MOVIE MARK!". That's what people used to call me back in the 90's. I was a certified movie geek/fanatic/freak, you name it.

I obsessively read Film Threat and Film Threat Video Guide. I read books by directors and about directors. I poured over movie catalogues. I was well known by all the local video store employees.

I went to the movies a few times a week, but mostly I watched at home. Constantly. I had no social life to speak of. I did not date. I drank a lot. I rented a lot of movies. And I rewatched them over and over again.

I watched grimy underground movies. I watched horror and exploitation. I watched foreign, independent, and weird movies from the past. I also watched big budget fare.

Patton Oswalt, a very funny comedian, actor, and writer, has written a memoir called Silver Screen Fiend. I raced through every act of the book over the course of a day. I liked it a lot. It's funny, insightful, and a little scary.

I saw a lot of myself in Silver Screen Fiend. If anything I was worse than Oswalt. I watched more than he appears to have watched, and my life was undoubtedly more seclusive than his.

Oswalt talks about how his movie obsession overpowered his life. How it made him feel alienated. How he became a film pedant.

I can certainly relate. I felt so far removed from other people. I pitied them for their mundane tastes, their lack of knowledge of film history. Their willingness to sit through pop cinema and not seek out alternatives.

Oddly enough, my own movie drenched years were the exact same as Patton Oswalt's. The 90's, a great time for adventurous cinema. VHS blew up and blew apart in those years.

I look back to my most obsessed movie years with a certain degree of fondness. I think Oswalt does as well. But he does not wish to repeat it. Nor do I.

Movies are great, and there is a wealth of amazing things out there beyond the mainstream. However, addiction leads to an unhealthy life.

Oswalt's movie obsession ended with a big catalyst. Mine gradually died down. I now watch far, far fewer movies, but my life is infinitely richer. Like Patton Oswalt, I had to come out of the darkness and into the light.

Now I read a lot more, but I keep that in check. I'm not one of those who boast of reading many hundreds of books a year. I find reading to be a much more stimulating pursuit than movie watching. I may watch three or four a month these days. And I am just fine with that.

Silver Screen Fiend is a quick and very amusing read, but it hit me like a train crash. In between the laughs and the cringe-worthy embarrassing confessions Oswalt has written a potent and sobering cautionary tale.

Written by Mark Sieber