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Which Films Are Spoofed in “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”?

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A film that truly caters to the avid cinephile, Alfonso Gomez-Rejon’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl (2015) is replete with cinematic winks and homages, almost all within the context of the homemade movies crafted by the film’s main characters.

After Greg Gaines (the titular “Me,” played by Thomas Mann) learns his classmate Rachel (the “dying girl,” Olivia Cooke) has been diagnosed with leukemia, he is coerced into creating a film for her. This is no abitrary request, as Greg has spent the greater part of his young life amassing an extensive collection of films with his “co-worker,” Earl (RJ Cyler).

Throughout the film, we catch glimpses of the pair’s past work, sometimes directly, sometimes in snatches as we move through the Me and Earl and the Dying Girl cinematic universe. These short films-within-the-film were made by the artists Edward Bursch and Nathan Marsh. Gomez-Rejon gave the team a very specific challenge: make a bunch of films as if you’re a seventeen-year-old cinephile. And that they did, shooting twenty-one of the short films during the days of production, with additional titles that can be glimpsed among the cinematic library in Greg’s house.

For everyone that wanted to linger a few seconds more on each title and clip and process the true genius of Greg and Earl, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the flicks the duo churned out (chronologically), as well as the original film it spoofed.

The Prunes of Wrath — The Grapes of Wrath (1940)

Raging Bullshit — Raging Bull (1980)

49th Parallelogram — The 49th Parallel (1941)

Death in Tennis — Death in Venice (1971)

Eyes Wide Butt — Eyes Wide Shut (1999)

Greg and Earl 3: The Last Crusade — Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

Ate ½ (of my sandwich) — (1963)

Anatomy of a Burger — Anatomy of a Murder (1959)

Pittsburghistquatsi — Koyaanisquatsi (1982)

Senior Citizen Cane — Citizen Kane (1941)

‘Rear Wind — Rear Window (1954)

Second (Helpings of Dinner) — Seconds (1966)

Crouching Housecat, Hidden Housecat – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

The 400 Bros — The 400 Blows (1959)

The Lady Manishness — The Lady Vanishes (1938)

Breathe Less — Breathless (1960)

Yellow Submarine Sandwich — Yellow Submarine (1968)

The Janitor of Oz — The Wizard of Oz (1939)

Scabface — Scarface (1983)

The Seven Seals — The Seventh Seal (1957)

The Battle of All Deers — The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Mono Rash — Rashomon (1950)

It’s a Punderful Life — It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Hairy, Old, and Mod — Harold and Maude (1971)

The Last Crustacean of Christ — The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

Wages for Beer — The Wages of Fear (1953)

Nose Ferret 2: A Symphony of Horror — Nosferatu (1922)

The Fake Tricks — The Matrix (1999)

Rosemary Baby Carrots — Rosemary’s Baby (1968)

Don’t Look Now Because a Creepy-Ass Dwarf is About to Kill You!!! Damn — Don’t Look Now (1973)

2:48pm Cowboy — Midnight Cowboy (1969)

uM — M (1931)

My Best Actor is also a Dangerous Lunatic — My Best Fiend (1999)

My Dinner with Andre the Giant — My Dinner with Andre (1981)

ZZZ — Z (1969)

Can’t Tempt (Because She’s Plastic) — Contempt (1963)

The Rad Shoes — The Red Shoes (1948)

Grumpy Cul-de-Sacs — Mean Streets (1973)

La Gelée - La Jetèe (1962)

The Turd Man — The Third Man (1949)

Gone with My Wind — Gone with the Wind (1939)

A Billion Years of Solitude — a spoof of Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s 1967 novel One Hundred Years of Solitude (Although the book has never had a direct film adaptation, there is a very loose Japanese one: Farewell to the Ark (1984)

And, upon closer inspection, there seem to be even more hidden projects that belong to the budding auteurs. These include such classics as:

Jurassic Skate Park — Jurassic Park (1993)

A Sockwork Orange — A Clockwork Orange (1972)

Brew Vervet — Blue Velvet (1986)

Burden of Screams — Burden of Dreams (1982)

Pooping Tom — Peeping Tom (1960)

The Complete Lack of Conversation — The Conversation (1974)

Vere’d He Go? — Vertigo (1958)

A Box O’ Lips, Wow — Apocalypse Now (1979)

Gross Encounters of the Turd Kind — Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

Whether or not they were ever, or will be, made is best left to the realm of speculation. Who’s to say a few discs haven’t gotten scattered throughout the Gaines household over the past several years? Granted, it is safe to say that had Rejon the time, he would have gladly seen every single project carried out. But maybe they were — at least for Greg and Earl. Though we may never witness the conception of these films, we’ve been given a name and a pun, simple and harmless, but which lead down a rabbit hole to a film, an idea or something entirely new. And for that, we can only thank the auteurs, as well as those auteurs behind them.