Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life From An Addiction To Film – Patton Oswalt

In the late 90s, Patton Oswalt, having recently moved to Los Angeles, found himself at the New Beverly Cinema for a double feature.  Thus started a four year obsession with film that, in some cases, took over his life.  The comedian’s memoir of that time in his life touches on his anxieties about his comedy and his short tenure writing for MadTV.

I went through a similar, though not as high falutin, obsession with movies at around the same point in my life, which was a year after Oswalt’s obsession died, thanks to George Lucas and Episode I.  Over the course of the 365 days of the year 2000, I managed to see 351 movies.  To this day, I can’t fathom how I managed this.  I certainly could not recall specifics about the films or where and how I saw them, unlike Oswalt.  Thankfully, I burned out much more quickly, as this was by far the most I had ever done in a single year.  In fact, if you add up 1999’s and 2001’s totals, you would still be 100 films short.