The book Ed uses for inspiration "This Is Orson Welles" is a 1992 book by Orson Welles (1915-1985) and Peter Bogdanovich that comprises conversations between the two filmmakers recorded over several years, beginning in 1969.
Ed is shown watching The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) and Citizen Kane (1941) in the theater.
5001 Nights at the Movies, first published in 1982, is a book compiling film critic Pauline Kael's reviews of movies from the silent era to the 1980s.
During a dinner with Maurice and Ed, Peter Bogdanovich says he was in Fairbanks scouting locations for his next film "The Thing Called Love." In real life, Bogdanovich released a film by that title in 1993; the film was primarily set in Nashville.