I love Patton Oswalt. He is the rare comedian whose grasp of language is as rich as his jokes are funny. That such exquisite verbiage is so often used in the service of detailing the most appalling and grotesque aspects of life as he sees it makes him just as much a public intellectual for my generation as a hilarious fatty joke teller. My Weakness Is Strong is his second stand-up DVD preceded by No Reason to Complain a few years ago. He is still as impishly caustic as ever but, with his latest, he goes a little deeper than he has in the past. Whereas before he has obsessed over how awesome it would be to die in the apocalypse, the theoretical conversations among employees of a Dutch porn magazine called Piss Drinkers, and perhaps most famously, the 21st century horror that is KFC's "food bowl" menu, now there is a new poignancy to his material.

I had avoided this DVD for a while because Patton got married and had a kid not too long ago and, as he pointed out so astutely once, nothing kills comedy like being happy. I was resigned to the fact that My Weakness Is Strong was going to epitomize the niche suckiness of parenting humor and didn't want to witness a once brilliant comedian wasting his prodigious talents on such boring garbage. I was totally wrong in two ways. First of all, yeah, he talks a little about being a father, but all his observations are refreshingly unsentimental and kind of demented. And with his new material he casts himself in a pretty vulnerable light, adding a new layer of depth to his comedy. He talks about his struggle with depression and his attempts to wean himself off Prozac, as well as the toll his outsized well of negativity that is the source for so much of his creative inspiration has taken on his life. Everybody knows that comedians are miserable people but I don't think I've ever heard someone get to the heart of it as artfully as Patton does in My Weakness Is Strong.

There are still plenty of bits that would be right at home on his previous specials. He talks about house hunting with his wife and accidentally interrupting an orgy. There is a great explanation of the hideous logic of grocery stores installing self checkout machines. There are also plenty of awesome phrases he uses that only someone with such a deep affinity for fantasy literature could possibly come up with. Most of it is unprintable here-though "stink crevice" should give you some idea of what to expect - but trust me, you will be quoting it for months. It's always exciting to see an artist really hitting their stride and with My Weakness Is Strong Patton Oswalt has really come into his own. He has a newfound confidence and has refused to repeat himself. He has outgrown the "alternative comedian" label to become just a stellar comedian period.