Silver Screen Fiend

Oswalt chronicles the four years, 1995 to 1999, when he was a compulsive filmgoer, haunting Los Angeles revival cinemas and cataloging every movie he saw while trying to become a director himself. He frames that cinephile obsession as a genuine addiction that both fed and stalled his creative life, and traces how letting it go freed him to build his own career. Funny and self-aware, it is a love letter to movies and a cautionary tale about worship over doing.