Kustom Kar Kommandos (1970 Kenneth Anger)
A short fetish film. Gently rub a fluffy cloth over the shiny body as it glistens in the studio lights. Dream Lover plays in the background. Finally you stop the rubbing, your ready, you get in, no shoes, just socks and start the engine. It was an interesting film, but I am not sure why it is essential.
Our culture is rife with stories that sexualize a person's love for their automobile. J.G. Ballard's Crash does it rather directly, as does Cronenberg's movie, but I felt both missed that connection. There's the Judas priest song "Turbo Lover" which speaks of sex in drag racing terms. (And that song took on new layers when lead singer Rob Halford came out.) I think Kustom Kar Kommandos does it best, and in a way that's more loving than sexual, and it makes the point with the most basic techniques - careful framing, glossy lighting, the right song.
One Man Band (2005 Andrew Jimenez)
Delightful "fight" between 2 one man bands' for the coin of a little girl. It keeps a nice pace to deliver it's punch line.
The music is by Michael Giacchino, and I see this as the point where he went from working for Pixar to showing what he could contribute to making a story better. I also like the creativity in making the two musicians completely different in style and then decking out their arsenal to a way that's extreme, but still plausible... as animation. (In live action it would look terrible.)
Don't have much to add on the other two shorts, but it seems you enjoyed them plenty.
Dawn of the Dead (1978 George Romero)
Once again Romero has a black man as a central character, with no mention of his colour. It is a shame the female lead had so little to do, I wish she had not been relegated to more of a filler character.
In Dawn of the Dead, Romero had a lot of infighting with his group of strangers. With Dawn, he takes the Howard Hawks approach of everyone working together, doing what they do best. Peter emerges naturally as the leader, so his color is never an issue. Meanwhile Fran proves to be more capable than Stephen. That's what's so great about her character. The soldiers see Stephen looking cool in his flyboy outfit, piloting the helicopter and they assume Fran is just his girl, someone they're going to have to get out of trouble. But she wins them over, proving her worth to the group, while Stephen reveals himself to ONLY be good at flying. I would say bland, blonde, white Roger is more of a filler character.
The setting of a shopping mall for the majority of the film was inspired, providing a range of scenes and some hidden surprises.
Never better.
I have read about the social commentary aspects of this film, and I can see some of them, the trouble is the film drags in several places, most notably in the TV studio, and about half way through the time in the mall. At over 2 hours long, it could do with 30 minutes cut.
One of the things that puts Dawn so high on my list is that section before the finale when they have the mall and they settle into a boring, suburban existence. It's THE all out zombie movie and Romero has a section where you feel the emptiness of this group living day-to-day to where the mall, their castle becomes their prison.
It was interesting to see that Dario Argento did some work on this film.
He also has his own cut of the film, though I've never been interested in watching it. Love the synth music he contributed with Goblins.
Do you know he also has a Story credit on Once Upon a Time in the West? Argento, Leone and Bernardo Bertolucci. Three names you wouldn't expect to find working together.