A review by jorsie
Silver Screen Fiend: Learning about Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

2.0

The moral of Silver Screen Fiend is to watch fewer movies. That's not what I signed up for when I started listening to the audiobook, narrated by Patton Oswalt himself. Despite effortlessly dispensing facts and trivia about films from all decades and genres, Oswalt backpedaled on his film obsession. During this time period, 1995–1999, Oswalt worked his way up to a comedy special on HBO and landed a permanent gig on long-running sitcom, yet that was his main takeaway: fewer movies. Oswalt definitely gets it (about The Bicycle Thief, he wrote: "It's the kind of movie that makes you realize that each person you glance at, interact with, or ignore is an epic film or thrilling novel you'll never get to experience. Makes you bless the grandeur of life and curse it at the same time for being too painfully narrow and brief."), but Frank Capra got it better:

"Film is a disease, when it infects your bloodstream, it takes over as the number one hormone...it plays Iago to your psyche. As with heroin, the antidote to film is more film." —included as an epigraph in the book