Current Reading: Silver Screen Fiend

My friend Rand has been telling me for some time that I would enjoy reading this book and today I read Patton Oswalt's Silver Screen Fiend: Learning about life from an addiction to film. I thought it would be a memoir about Oswalt's experiences watching movies. And the book is that. But the book is much more about how Oswalt was able to become a successful actor and standup comedian by learning to deal with his mental health challenges. It was a short book -- just over two hundred pages -- but I did enjoy it.

In some ways, Oswalt's book reminds me of Sarah Vowell's Take The Cannolli. In that essay, Vowell describes a period in her life during college in Montana when she watched the movie The Godfather almost every day. She did not watch it from start to finish, but, when she was alone in the house, she popped the tape into the VHS player and watched for a while at whatever random spot the tape was last stopped. The title comes from one scene:

My favorite scene in the film takes place on a deserted highway with the Statue of Liberty off in the distance. The don's henchman Clemenza is on the road with two of his men. He's under orders that only one of them is supposed to make the ride back. Clemenza tells the driver to pull over. "I gotta take a leak," he says. As Clemenza empties his bladder, the man in the backseat empties his gun into the driver's skull. There are three shots. The grisly, back-of-the-head murder of a rat fink associate is all in a day's work. But Clemenza's overriding responsibility is to his family. He takes a moment out of his routine madness to remember that he had promised his wife he would bring dessert home. His instruction to his partner in crime is an entire moral manifesto in six little words: "Leave the gun. Take the cannoli." 

Back to Oswalt.

Oswalt does not really have a definitive list of his favorite movies in Silver Screen Fiend. But he does make a top ten list on the Criterion web site. I have seen only six of these movie myself. I would say that Amarcord, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and the Spirit of the Beehive are great movies for me, personally. Obviously, or at least I hope it is obvious, people have different views of what a great movie is. And just a note, the comments on the movies are Oswalt's, not mine.

Here is Oswalt's list of top 10 Criterion movies.

1. John Woo Hard Boiled Out of print, but I’ve got it! Wheeee! Terrific commentary and eleven Woo trailers! 
2. David Gordon Green George Washington David Gordon Green!
3. Federico Fellini Amarcord God, I love huge breasts, and this one’s got two of the hugest-est. Also, it’s a coming-of-age teen sex comedy, but with fascism! Also, the boobs.
4. Samuel Fuller The Baron of Arizona There are three terrific movies in the Eclipse set The First Films of Samuel Fuller, and the fact that they’re collected in this nifty package is a huge bonus. The Baron of Arizona plays like an old West episode of Blackadder—and features one of Vincent Price’s best performances.
5. Allen Baron Blast of Silence I’ve already written extensively about this lean, nasty little masterpiece. It’s on the list cuz you need to buy it. (To read an interview with artist Sean Phillips about the design of Blast of Silence and for a link to Patton’s writing about the film,
6. Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp One of the better, funnier DVD menus I’ve ever seen—is it weird to recommend a DVD just for the menu? Plus, great commentary by Stephen Fry, plus background on the Colonel Blimp cartoon strip and creator, which shows you how miraculous this movie adaptation is. Imagine a big-screen version of Family Circus that manages to be a searing indictment of the American family. Wow!
7. David Maysles, Albert Maysles, and Charlotte Zwerin Gimme Shelter One of the best horror movies ever made. The whole movie is shot inside the belly of a quivering, invisible demon—the 1960s, rotting in the sunshine of idealism and about to burst with flies.
8. Leonard Kastle The Honeymoon Killers Okay this DVD’s got the coolest menu Criterion’s ever devised. Crinkly, tabloid newspapers that you leaf through to get to the meat of the murder. Tawdry and beautiful.
9. Richard Linklater Slacker Packaged like a lost, beloved novel, and full of groovy extras, which stand like a sketchbook of doodlings that eventually jelled into the full movie.
10. Víctor Erice The Spirit of the Beehive Another beautiful movie beautifully packaged—seemingly a box of wonders fashioned by the two little girls from the movie.