Top left: From Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction: Marsellus Wallace's two hit men, Jules Winnfield (left) and Vincent Vega, discuss the fine points of giving a woman a foot massage, just prior to performing a hit. Top right: From Michael Mann's Heat: A member of Neil McCauley's gang falls face-down in a pool of water, while trying to escape the police during the aftermath of a major bank robbery committed by the gang, presenting a comical spectacle. Above left: Some prostitutes operating out of a rooming house suddenly start dancing to The Loco-Motion for no apparent reason, in David Lynch's Inland Empire. Above right: For a brief moment while David Bowman is disconnecting HAL, not long after HAL has killed the other four Discovery One astronauts, the top of Bowman's green space helmet makes his head appear similar to that of Kermit the Frog. In the scenes from their respective films shown here, Tarantino, Mann, and Lynch are each making an allusion to Kubrick's philosophy of inserting humor into, and thus making light of, serious situations in his films.
