Tag: Film

David Mamet

EMILY: I have to get out everything she’s [Richard’s mother] ever given us. Thirty-five years worth of fish lamps and dog statues, lion tables, and stupid naked angels with their … butts!
LORELAI: Whoa! Stupid naked angel butts? What, did David Mamet just stop by?

Lorelai is probably referring to David Mamet’s 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross. It shows two days in the lives of four Chicago real estate agents prepared to do anything, no matter how illegal or unethical, to sell some undesirable real estate. It won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize, and in 1992 was made into into a highly-acclaimed film, with the screenplay written by Mamet.

The play is notorious for its use of profanity, and Lorelai is teasing her mother for her uncharacteristic use of the word “butts”. Maybe the butt model conversation affected her.

David Mamet is one of Amy Sherman-Palladino’s own favourite playwrights.

Emily’s statement suggests that she and Richard have been married for thirty-five years, so since 1965-1966.

Madame Curie and Jennifer Lopez

PARIS: Yeah well, I doubt highly that Madam Curie was voted most likely to dress like Jennifer Lopez.

Marie Curie, born Maria Skłodowska (1867-1934) [pictured] was a Polish-born French physicist and chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first woman to win a Nobel prize, the first person and only woman to win it twice, and the only person to win it in two different sciences. The Curie family, including Marie, her husband Pierre, daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, son-in-law Frédéric Joliot-Curie, and son-in-law Henri Labouisse, has won more Nobel Prizes than any other family. She was the first woman to become a Professor at the University of Paris, and the first woman to be entombed at The Panthéon in Paris on her own merits.

Jennifer Lopez (born 1969) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and fashion designer. She began her career in 1991 as a dancer on television before branching into acting in 1993 (although she’d made her film debut as a teenager in a low-budget film). Her first starring role was in Selena (1997); she went on to star in other films in the 1990s, becoming the highest-paid Latina actress in Hollywood. She ventured into the music industry in 1999, with her debut album On the 6, which had two Top Ten singles. In January 2001, a few weeks before the events of this episode, she brought out her second album, J.Lo, around the same time as the release of her romantic comedy, The Wedding Planner, becoming the first woman to have a #1 album and #1 film in the same week.

We learn here that Paris’ ambition is to work in medical research toward the better understanding and treatment of cancer. It apparently doesn’t work out that way. Oddly enough, Liza Weil, who plays Paris, would later play a character who dies from cancer on medical drama Grey’s Anatomy.

G.I. Jane

RORY: Sorry [about making them walk through an alley to get to the diner].
LORELAI: No, this is good. This is like G.I. Jane but we get to keep our hair.

G.I. Jane is a 1997 action film directed by Ridley Scott, and starring Demi Moore as Jordan O’Neill, the first woman to undergo a brutal training program for a fictional military team similar to the real-life Navy SEALs. The character shaves her head so she will fit in with the other recruits.

G.I. Jane did quite well at the box office and received mixed reviews; Demi Moore received Worst Actress at the Razzie Awards. Of course Lorelai is over-dramatising to the hilt by comparing strolling through an alley one morning with a weeks-long gruelling training program complete with mental and physical torture.

Footloose

RORY: Some people like getting up early.
LORELAI: You lie.
RORY: No, they do it voluntarily …
LORELAI: Ha! Jump back!
RORY: Excuse me?
LORELAI: Kevin Bacon, Footloose, reaction to the no dancing in town rule is revealed to him by Chris Penn, brother to Sean, sage to all.

Footloose is a 1984 musical film directed by Herbert Ross, and starring Kevin Bacon as a Chicago teenager who moves to a small town and discovers it has banned dancing and rock music. In the film, his character says, “Jump back!” when his new friend in town, played by Chris Penn, explains to him about the no dancing rule. (Chris Penn, who died in 2006, was a brother of actor Sean Penn, but I don’t know how he was a “sage to all”).

Footloose was the #7 film of 1984. Despite mixed reviews, it is generally held to be cheesy good fun, and has been turned into a stage musical, and had a remake in 2011.

Lorelai jokingly compares her shock at learning that some people get up early, even on Saturday mornings, to the shock Kevin Bacon’s character feels at discovering that an entire town has banned dancing.

Sad Movies

Lorelai suggests a number of sad movies they could rent so that Rory can wallow in her grief.

Love Story is a 1970 romantic drama directed by Arthur Hiller, and based on the best-selling 1970 novel of the same name by Erich Segal, who also wrote the screenplay. The story is about a wealthy Harvard student named Oliver (Ryan O’Neal) who falls in love with a working-class Radcliffe student named Jennifer (Ali McGraw). Despite his family’s opposition, Oliver and Jennifer marry, but unfortunately she soon dies of a terminal illness.

Love Story was the #1 film of 1970 and remains one of the highest-grossing films of all time, but was panned by critics. It is considered to be one of the most romantic films ever made.

The Champ is a 1979 sports drama directed by Franco Zefferelli, a remake of a 1931 film directed by King Vidor. It’s about an ex-boxing champion named Billy (Jon Voigt), who has custody of his young son T.J. (Ricky Schroeder).

Little T.J.worships his father, who he calls “The Champ”, and Billy begins working on a comeback to earn more money for him. T.J.’s mother Annie (Faye Dunaway) comes back into his life; now wealthy, she wants to regain custody of her son. Billy wins his fight, but unfortunately he dies from his injuries in front of a distraught T.J. The Champ received poor reviews, but is considered to be the saddest movie in the world.

An Affair to Remember is a 1957 romance directed by Leo McCarey, and is a remake of McCarey’s 1939 film Love Affair. It is about a painter named Nickie (Cary Grant) who meets a woman named Terry (Deborah Kerr) on a transatlantic ocean liner. They fall in love, even though both of them are involved with other people.

Arranging to meet atop the Empire State Building, Terry is unfortunately mangled in a car accident on her way there, and ends up in a wheelchair. Nickie believes she has rejected him, as Terry doesn’t want him to know she is disabled. It isn’t a tragedy and ends on quite a hopeful note. The #20 film of 1957, it is considered one of the most romantic films of all time.

Ishtar is a 1987 adventure comedy directed by Elaine May, and starring Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman as two untalented singer-songwriters who get caught up in political unrest while on tour in North Africa. Shot on location and massively over-budget, Ishtar is an infamous box office failure that was panned by critics and earned May a Worst Director at the Golden Raspberry Awards; she never directed another film.

Lorelai includes the film as a joke, to suggest that they might rent Ishtar in order to cry over how bad it is – indeed, Ishtar quickly became regarded as the worst film ever made. However, since the film was released on Blu-Ray on 2013 its reputation has been rehabilitated to some extent, gaining a cult following, and praise from film makers such as Martin Scorcese and Quentin Tarantino.

Old Yeller is a 1957 family drama produced by Walt Disney, and based on the 1956 award-winning children’s book of the same name by Fred Gipson. Set in Texas in the late 1860s, it is about a boy named Travis (Tommy Kirk) and his faithful hound, a golden retriever cross named Old Yeller. Unfortunately, Old Yeller gets rabies and Travis has to shoot him.

Old Yeller was the #4 film of 1957, and warmly praised as sentimental family film. It’s a film that Americans, especially baby boomers, remember with fondness as having one of the most tear-jerking scenes ever, and has become something of a cultural icon. Lorelai wonders if it might be more of a crying film for guys; it’s definitely one for animal lovers, which Rory doesn’t seem to be.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

This is the play that the Stars Hollow Elementary School is currently performing; Rory suggests that she and Lorelai might see it as a reward for getting all their Saturday morning chores done. It doesn’t seem as if they ever did, however.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a black comedy by American playwright Ed Albee, first staged in 1962. It is about a middle-aged couple named George and Martha who have a volatile relationship. A drunken night they spend with a young couple named Nick and Honey reveals a poignant secret in George and Martha’s marriage.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won the Tony Award for Best Play, while its Broadway stars Uta Hagen and Arthur Hill won Best Actress and Best Actor. It was successfully adapted to film in 1966 with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the lead roles.

Needless to say, it is completely inappropriate as a play for elementary school children to even watch, let alone take part in. Not only is it unusually long with complex dialogue to memorise, but the characters are utterly vicious to one another. It heavily features alcohol use/abuse, and discusses death, murder (including murder of children by their parents and vice versa), and sexual themes, including infidelity.

It seems too much even for quirky Stars Hollow, so perhaps Rory used it jokingly as a hypothetical activity. It’s definitely a joke by the writer (Amy Sherman-Palladino).

“It sleeps with the fishes”

RORY: Far, far away from the house, okay? [referring to her box of items that remind her of Dean]
LORELAI: Hey, it sleeps with the fishes.

A reference to the 1972 crime film The Godfather, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and based on the best-selling 1969 novel of the same name by Mario Puzo. The story is about an Italian-American crime family in New York in the 1940s and ’50s, under their patriarch Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando). It depicts the transformation of Vito’s son Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) from an outsider in the family to mafia boss.

The Godfather was the #1 film of 1972, and is one of the highest-grossing films in cinema history. It won the Academy Award for Best Picture, while Marlon Brando received Best Actor, and Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo won Best Adapted Screenplay. It is regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, and has been highly influential on gangster films.

In the film, Luca Brasi is the loyal enforcer to Don Vito Corleone. He is murdered by a rival mobster, who sends the Corleone family Brasi’s bulletproof vest with a fish in it, a message that “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes” (ie his corpse was thrown into a body of water).

It becomes apparent through the series that The Godfather is a favourite movie of Lorelai and Rory.

Lorelai does not make good on her word, hiding Rory’s “Dean memory box” in the hall cupboard. It doesn’t seem like a particularly sneaky hiding place, and Rory finds it later in the season. Rather confusingly, prior to this the doorway in the hall led into the downstairs bathroom. Where the bathroom went is a mystery, but it still exists, as it is referred to several times later.

Christine

RORY: Dean, what is this [the junk yard filled with car wrecks]?
DEAN: Okay. Uh, did you ever see Christine?
RORY: Yes.
DEAN: Well, it’s nothing like that.

Christine is a 1983 film directed by John Carpenter, and based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The story is about a a red and white vintage car named Christine which is both sentient and violent, and how it affected its teenage owner. Although it received tepid reviews, it has since become a cult classic.

Bambi

DEAN: Well, you eat cute.
RORY: I do not eat cute. No one eats cute. Bambi maybe, but he’s a cartoon.

Bambi is a 1942 animated film produced by Walt Disney, and based on the 1923 children’s book Bambi, a Life in the Woods by Austrian author Felix Salten. Bambi is a deer, and the film shows him growing up from a newborn fawn to being the Great Prince of the Forest. As a fawn, he does indeed eat in a cute way. Although harshly reviewed by critics at the time, Bambi is now regarded as a classic and one of the best animated films of all time.

This is the second time in the episode that Rory has been compared to a Disney cartoon animal.