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It's time, once again for Matt's capsule reviews!

You know the drill, it won't necessary be relevant or contemporary, merely what media I've been consuming recently.

Strong Words - modern poets on modern poetry (Bloodaxe)
Excellent collection of essays by poets both famous and less so, which I suspect may do not a little towards informing this poetics movement we all have to work with these days. Particularly outstanding are essays by Yeats, MacNeice, Edwin Morgan and Sean O'Brien. Andrew Motion, as always, contributes fuck all of interest. One for Mr Cibula, I think.

Get Shorty
I just rewatched this film for the first time in several years, and can't quite get over how unbearably smug the whole thing is. Entertaining, but smug. Gene Hackman's laugh always makes me want to tear his arms off, and I will never, ever buy Travolta as a figure of cool. Have you seen Battlefield Earth?

That new Fatboy Slim single
You know the one, slash dot dash dot etc. Either Mr Slim is an evil genius or he has run entirely out of ideas, more than one listen inclines the listener to the latter theory. Bemusing.

The Bill
It's got a couple of cool detectives with one-liners in now! OMG! It's like Miami Vice in polycotton suits with added "issues"! It's still fucking terrible!

The fight outside my window at two thirty a.m.
SMASH! A bottle goes tits-up. Five points! SCREAM! A drunk girl wails "Leave it, Darren! He's not worth it!" Ten points! BELLOW! Two ben shermaned lads grunt imprecations at each other whilst backing away from each other. Fifteen points! FLASH! Drunken girl falls over, giving the boys (and me) a glimpse of what they've been fighting over. GOURANGA! Twenty five points! A classic, it had all the elements. But one word of advice to the girl in question, even in this sultry weather we're enduring, going commando is not the best thing to do in conjunction with alcopops, the phrase "badly opened tin of cat food" leapt to mind, as it so often will. One the other hand, the draught was quite pleasant on a muggy night.

Shrek 2
It's good. I mean, Shrek was good, so's this. Somewhat chillingly precisely well-made. So yeah, it's good. Scary, but good.

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