Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s inventive film is a small world of numerous film references. Some of them are indicated below.
At first, three posters are shown in Greg’s room…
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980).
Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973).
François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959).
Later in the film, there are few scenes in a shop where Greg is buying DVDs and books. Lots of discs, most of them from the Criterion Collection, even Laserdiscs(!) and some posters are shown.
Pedro Almodóvar’s Volver (2006).
Disc cover of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps (1935) and posters of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982) and Criterion’s cover for the two films of Chris Marker, La Jetée (1962) and Sans Soleil (1983).
Disc covers of Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001) and Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus (1959).
Disc cover of Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank (2009) and laserdisc cover of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev (1966).
DVD cover of Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957), laserdisc covers of David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers (1988) and Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express (1994).
Max Ophüls’ The Earrings of Madame de… (1953).
Some film watching as well. Three actual films are shown.
Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982) which is shown several times in the film.
Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976).
François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows (1959).
And time for the film’s biggest treat, the parodies of classic movies made by Greg and Earl. Enjoy!
Louis Malle’s My Dinner with Andre (1981).
Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt (1963).
Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless (1960).
Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (1971).
Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now (1973).
Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal (1957).
Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960).
Roman Polanski’s Cul-de-sac (1966).
Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice (1971).
Les Blank’s Burden of Dreams (1982).
David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986).
Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958).
John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969).
Scenes from Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015).
