The greatest joy of dramatization lies in the fact that you can take just about any scenario, be it brushing one’s teeth, digging a hole, or eating a piece of pie, and, through the magic of blocking and dialogue, turn it into something delightfully entertaining; some of us would gladly sit through an hour and a half of two characters talking about socks, provided someone like Tarantino provided the script.
It’s truly the historic bread and butter of movie magic, and in honor of the many unforgettable moments that have cropped up because of it, r/movies is picking out the some of cinema’s most entertaining scenes that stemmed from a mundane activity.
The initiating poster kicked us off by pointing out how 1960s Psycho included a shower scene that would go on to be known as “the shower scene,” the phrase now synonymous with that foreboding silhouette.
Going back to Tarantino, one user recalled one of the first scenes from the director’s staple film Pulp Fiction, in which Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) and Vincent (John Travolta) talk at length about the differences between American cheeseburgers and international cheeseburgers, all while managing to keep the audience engaged almost effortlessly.
Another user blamed American Beauty and Ghost for mutating their emotional response to rogue plastic bags and pottery wheels for the foreseeable future.
One other responder pointed out Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver scene in which Travis simply talks to himself in the mirror, which we’re all guilty of whether we admit to it or not.
Indeed, there’s something mesmerizing about movies who make something so memorable with a scene premise that’s so forgettable; when was the last time you remember being entertained by a conversation about hamburgers? Probably not since your last viewing of Pulp Fiction.