Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What is happening?

An unpleasant, but in the grand scheme of things quite minor, incident occurred at a local school yesterday. Two lads entered the premises looking for another kid they wanted to assault. The school followed protocols and was locked down until the situation was resolved. Grim enough in and of itself, but not exactly a massive piece of news. Except, of course, on local Facebook pages, where a cast of many hang around visibly thirsting for events like this. This isn't a post about them, however. There is something desperately sad about a million posts on the same subject, everyone breathlessly recycling the same story without checking whether it might have already been covered. It speaks to an unfulfilled existence. Nor is this a post about Facebook and it's local pages, though they are a weird and interesting ecosystem. Were it not for running the pub, my Meta presence would be minimal, I need to be on there for work, and stuff like this is a necessary accoutrement. No, what depr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Inedible

"He says it's inedible" said my front of house manager, as she laid the half-eaten fish and chips in front of me, and instantly I relaxed.  Clearly, I observed, it was edible to some degree. I comped it, because I can't be arsed arguing the toss, and I want to make my front of house's lives as simple as possible. The haddock had been delivered that morning. The fryers had been cleaned that morning. The batter had been made that morning (and it's very good batter, ask me nicely and I'll give you the recipe some time). The fish and chips was identical to the other 27 portions I'd sent out on that lunch service, all of which had come back more or less hoovered up, we have have a (justified, if I do say so myself) very good reputation for our chips. But it was, apparently, "inedible". When it comes to complaints, less is more. If you use a hyperbolic word like that, I'll switch off, you've marked yourself as a rube, a chump, I'm not g...
Post a Comment
Read more

Worthless Art

Ah, we're back to calling humanities degrees rip-offs, are we? What a semi regular treat that is. There is a persistent strain of thought in British public life which runs thus: things are shit, blame clever people. When a politician needs a convenient punchbag, higher education is always a quick and easy mark. Everyone hates students, right? And those lecturers, bit up themselves, aren't they? And so Kemi Badenoch, bereft of ideas, takes up the cudgels once more, because why not? It's not like she's got anything else sensible to say. Might as well try and score a few populist points. Cuh, English degrees eh? What use are they?  Yes, this week, the erstwhile leader of His Majesty's Opposition decided to wander down a tired and well-trodden path and try to score a few points off the back of the much maligned Arts and Humanities. She's not the first, I highly doubt she'll be the last. She set out plans to a somewhat sparsely attended Conservative Party Confere...
1 comment
Read more