Isn’t there some Brad Pitt movie (I want to say Fight Club but it’s been awhile since I’ve watched it) where his character is standing in the street in front of a very prominent movie marquee for Seven Years in Tibet?
The was an episode of G.I. Joe back in the 80s wherein COBRA’s doomsday contraption du jour was actually called “The McGuffin Device.” Talk about knowing you’re in a work of fiction.
i think that same ep comes complete with a terrifically deadpan reference made by mark harmon as to whom ducky resembles - and photographs of ducky as a young man - inside ducky’s home - that are clearly stills from the UNCLE tv series.
Some Agent: What did Dr. Mallard look like when he was young?
Mark Harmon (deadpan): Illya Kuryakin
And speaking of self-referential…see posts #34 and #59 
I guess neither of us had looked far enough back in the thread before we posted.
The 1994 movie New Nightmare is highly self-referential. It features several people who were involved with the original 1984 ‘Nightmare On Elm Street’ this time playing themselves as people in ‘real life’ who either are involved, or become involved, with the fact that writer/director Wes Craven is working on a new ‘Nightmare’ movie. It intentionally tries to blur the distinction between the fictional world of the ‘Nightmare’ series and the ‘real’ world in which people talk about these movies as movies. This attempt to blur boundaries could have turned out a disastrous mess, but I think the end result is actually quite clever and well-directed, if not especially scary by the standards of the genre.
I actually caught the episode that scene was from the other day, and it really was the cleverest thing in an incredible dopey episode (and that’s as compared to other episodes of the show!) The A-Team is protecting an actress at Universal Studios from what appears to be a phantom. The climax of the film involves a chase through the studio backlot, with the cast reacting in terror to the special effects that are part of the studio backlot show, as if they were genuine threats, and not theatrics. “Oh no! The tram is headed right at that brick wall!” The tram heads right at that brick wall thirty times a day! You’re at an amusement park, you idiots!
In the Doris Day film Caprice, she goes into a movie theater where they are showing Caprice.
Flushed Away is full of this kind of thing. I just linked to the film’s trivia page, which lists a lot of them. My favorite is that Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) dithers between choosing a rhinestone Elvis jumpsuit and a Wolverine costume in the beginning of the film. Hugh Jackman, of course, played Wolverine in the X-Men movies. He also flips past a Wallace (of "Wallace & Gromit) outfit. My favorite obscure one is that the cockroach in Rita’s family’s kitchen is reading Kafka’sLa Metamorphose, in which a man wakes up one morning as an insect.
It’s really a hilarious movie. Everyone should see it.
Flushed Away is full of this kind of thing. I just linked to the film’s trivia page, which lists a lot of them. My favorite is that Roddy (voiced by Hugh Jackman) dithers between choosing a rhinestone Elvis jumpsuit and a Wolverine costume in the beginning of the film. Hugh Jackman, of course, played Wolverine in the X-Men movies. He also flips past a Wallace (of "Wallace & Gromit) outfit. My favorite obscure one is that the cockroach in Rita’s family’s kitchen is reading Kafka’sLa Metamorphose, in which a man wakes up one morning as an insect.
It’s really a hilarious movie. Everyone should see it.
This thread includes an extensive list of self-referential movies.
And he responds, IIRC “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”
And again when the credits appear superimposed on recently-laid eggs, and in the first scene, Gabor’s character comes in to the kitchen complaining, “Oliver, the eggs have writing on them again!”
In Sarah Silverman’s first appearance on the show, she was an obsessive fan of an actor whose ex-wife is murdered. Monk solves the case.
In her second appearance, her character has become an obsessive fan of Monk himself, with an encyclopediac knowledge of Monk’s prior cases… which she refers to by the episode titles… for example, she’s built a diorama of a scene where Monk’s at a county fair trying to discover why someone is trying to win all the pies, and refers to it as the case of “Mr. Monk and the Three Pies” – which was, of course, the title of that episode.
In the same movie, James Earl Jones speaks the line, “Do not alert him to my presence, I will deal with him myself.” - parrotting a line he also spoke in Star Wars.
And, continuing on 3rd Rock, we find Tommy in a rock band, and Dick goes downstairs and gives him and his band the “No Rock Music” speech from “Footloose” - in which John Lithgow plays the anti-dancing preacher.
-Joe
He did this standing in front of a giant speaker as his “pulpit.” One of the funniest things I ever saw.
3rd Rock had quite a few of them.
Yeah, well, if Viewsonic would ever get around to replacing my goddamned TV, I could finish watching my complete set!
Viewsonic - their support sucks donkey balls.
-Joe
Nannette Guzman, Frasier Crane’s first wife, appeared on the last season of his show. She was sick of her long run as a children’s TV show host and asked Frasier “Do you know what it’s like to play the same character on television for twenty years?”
Yes, Kelsey Grammer does.
Yeah, that was Fight Club. In fact, the director wanted to go for the trifecta and link Edward Norton with a marquee for Primal Fear, and Helena Bonham-Carter with one for Wings of the Dove, but somehow, was only able to get the Pitt/Tibet shot.
Now I’m trying to remember which Spielberg film had a marquee advertising A Boy’s Life and Watch the Skies, which were the working titles for E.T. and Close Encounters…