Fiendishly Average

Among celebrities, the "addiction memoir" -- chronicling a spiraling descent into obsession and the long slog back out -- is a time-honored tradition. But actor-comedian Patton Oswalt has found a new spin on it with his latest book, Silver Screen Fiend.

You may know Patton Oswalt from appearances on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Best Week Ever, or King of Queens. If you're on Twitter and you're not following him, you're doing it wrong. Oswalt not only has a scathing wit, he's as big a fanboy as you (if not more), geeking out over television, bigger celebrities, comics, and movies.

Oh, the movies. Which is what Silver Screen Fiend is about. For a four year period, from 1995 to 1999, Oswalt fell into the cycle of addiction by endlessly going to see movies (old and new) at theaters around Los Angeles. He told himself he was studying for the brilliant screenplay he would soon write and direct, but he now sees how he was dropping friends and responsibilities to overdose on celluloid. Some 15 years later, his experiences have produced an interesting (and if you're a film enthusiast, more than slightly sobering) account that convinces you film addiction is just as real an addiction as one to any other drug.

But I had higher hopes going into the book than were fulfilled. Oswalt is a very honest and convincing writer. Yet as funny as he can be as a stand-up comedian, I expected more humor from his book. Instead, he takes his film addiction as seriously as one could -- explaining the emotion and self-delusion that led to shirking life in favor of movies. There's something to be said for that, but it's not exactly was I was expecting (and rightly so, I think) from a man like Patton Oswalt.

The book is also surprisingly short. After three or four long chapters that work to set the stage, this memoir suddenly rapid-fires chapters of no more than a half-dozen pages each, wrapping up in less than 175 pages (and dedicating a fair chunk of those to an encyclopedic index of every movie he saw in the four years chronicled in the book). I suppose there's something to be said for expressing the point succinctly: "I was addicted and overcame it," but I was somehow expecting more.

A bit disappointed both in its length and substance, I find I can only give Silver Screen Fiend a B- at most. It's certainly a book more for movie lovers than Patton Oswalt fans, though people in either category could likely take it or leave it.