Suspiria

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Three stars

Take Staudingerstraße to Langackerwerg.  Weiter rechts gehen.  Follow the river to the house that witchcraft built.  Meander it’s deco halls, it’s swaths of Technicolor.  Count the footsteps in the night, past the hall of maggots, the Olympic swimming pool, the den of razor wire.  Past the long mirrored rehearsal studios, the maid’s quarters.  Peel back the curtain and breathe in the decay that is death transforming itself to life.  The sleep apnea of the witch.

D, W & M by: Dario Argento; More M: Goblin; More W: Daria Nicolodi; P by: Luciano Tovoli; FX by: Germano Natali & Fabio Traversari; E by: Franco Fraticelli; thnx: Mario Bava & Thomas De Quincey; w/Jessica Harper, Joan Bennett, Alida Valli, Udo Kier, Margherita Horowitz, Susana Javicoli, Flavio Bucci, Stefania Casini, 92 min, Italy, 1977
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Akira

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Three starsTwo stars

Roadside Billy pulled up to the grocery store.  “Hell yes, Syphillis!” he thought.  He was there to buy parsley & half & half.  This is a good anime.  Really good animation.  Nice gross stuff.  Real fluid motorcycle chases and ballooning flesh monsters.  A++

D,W & A by: Katsuhiro Ôtomo, More W: Izô Hashimoto, More A: Toshiharu Mizutani, Toyoaki Emura, Atsuko Fukushima, Yasihiro Seo, Tatsuyuki Tanaka, etc…, P by: Katsuji Misawa, M by: Shôji Yamashiro, E by: Takeshi Seyama, w/Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Tesshô Genda, Hiroshi Ôtake, Masaaki Ôkura, Kôichi Kitamura, Michihiro Ikemizu, etc…124 min, Japan, 1988

The 5 Deadly Venoms

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Three stars

Tempura-paint blood and stipple sponge beards!  The plot concerns 5 & a half protégés of a Kung-fu master and their respective goals of protecting or conning an old man.  They search for buried treasure and shove sharp implements up nostrils.  They run up walls.  There’s some mystery about who the 3rd venom (Scorpion) is.  I liked the masks, they kinda reminded me of the indigenous art of the Eyak and Aleut peoples of Alaska/Kamchatka.  I had to look up those names though.

D & W by: Chang Cheh, More W: Kuang Ni, P by: Mu-To Kung & Hui-Chi Tsao, E by: Hsing-Lung Chiang, M by: Yung-Yu Chen, S by: Ting Liang, Feng Lu, & Chi-Hsien Tai, w/Sheng Chiang, Lung Tu, Lung Wei Wang, Feng Lu, Chien Sun, Pai Wei, Meng Lo, Phillip Kwok Chung-Fung, etc…, 97 min, Hong Kong, 1978