I saw bits of The Brothers Bloom
The Brothers Bloom had a number of things working in its favor before I even pressed play. I love movies or books about con men – it doesn’t get much better than The Sting, despite the movie’s massive musical anachronism, and many of the hard-boiled detective novels I read are built around cons of one sort or another. It alludes to a number of literary works I’ve read – including, as you might guess, the one I’m struggling through reading right now. (And that is a major reason I’m reading Ulysses; without that experience, I often feel like I’m ignorant of a secret language that later authors used in their works.) It’s filmed all over Europe. It stars Adrien Brody, who I thought very much deserved his Oscar for The Pianist. (Or, one might argue, he deserved what he took along with the award.) It’s witty. And it has heart without excessive sentimentality.
The Brothers, Stephen (older) and Bloom (younger), are passed from foster home to foster home as children, earning their tickets out of each home for one sort of mischief or another, a pattern that culminates in a con that launches them on a roughly twenty-year spree of defrauding wealthy people as a way of life. Bloom, whose first name is never revealed, is always telling Stephen he wants out of the racket, but can’t commit to such a decision. When they pull what is to be Bloom’s “final” con, on wealthy, beautiful loner Penelope Stamp, Bloom falls in love with the mark while she finds the excitement her life has always lacked. Oh, and their Japanese sidekick, known as Bang Bang, never speaks but is a wizard with explosives.
Rachel Weisz ends up stealing much of the show in her role as Penelope as she manages to produce a fairly compelling display of social awkwardness and low self-confidence. Her effusive celebration when she pulls off, against all odds, her part in their biggest con, has an endearingly nerdy quality to it – she can’t believe she did it, and her celebration lacks the self-restraint of someone more conscious of how she looks to others around her. Brody’s performance was as strong, but the weakness and passivity of his character blended him into the background more than you’d expect for an actor of his caliber. Mark Ruffalo, as Stephen, oozes with confidence in a role that calls for a little overacting. Rinko Kikuchi says three more words as Bang Bang than she did in Babel, although she looks great throughout the film.
The richness and pace of the script were what made the movie work for me, even more than the performances or the con man angle. Everything is quick, quick cuts, short scenes, and no drawn-out monologues or lingering tension until the movie’s final sequence; it’s a hard-boiled movie, right down to the bantering among the characters and the remorselessness of the head fraudster. Writer Rian Johnson must be a fan of classic literature, from the overt reference to Herman Melville’s final novel, The Confidence Man, to the names Stephen (Dedalus) and (Leopold) Bloom (the two main characters in Ulysses) to Robbie “Hagrid” Coltrane’s stint as a Belgian man who pays far too much attention to his thick mustache (a nod to M. Poirot, I presume), which I admit is a cheap and easy way to win points with me. I haven’t seen anything of Johnson’s before, but I see he made a hard-boiled detective film in 2005 called Brick; if any of you have seen it, I’d like to hear your thoughts.
The Brothers Bloom did fall short in one regard – the path to the climax, where Bloom is forced by the script to make some, in my opinion, unrealistic choices, leading to an unrealistic (but poetic) choice by Stephen. Bloom’s desire to keep Penelope out of the con game is much more easily solved by him leaving the con game than by what ultimately unfolds, but having him simply walk away would have eliminated the slam-bang finish, where only Bang Bang’s exit is truly clever or memorable. It’s a forgivable flaw given the strength of the first 90 minutes, but I am, as always, a sucker for movies with a little heart.
.” I think their best song was 1998’s “Without a Doubt” – if they’d stuck with that slightly harder sound, they might have found a more consistent audience – but this was the high point of their recordings after that debut disc.
.” Another ’70s-influenced band – that huge guitar riff just fills your ears, and I think the lack of a singable chorus hurt their chances on this side of the pond. “
” gets an honorable mention, but that flopped here as well, and they have possibly the least radio-friendly band name since Pussy Galore.
.” Done right, rock tinged with Irish folk music is among my favorite styles of music. To the ring, to the right.
“. I admit it – hearing this for the first time, I went right back to ’87 and the first time I heard Appetite for Destruction. Of course, back in ’87 it blew my ears off, while in 2004 it was a little quaint.
.” Too clever by half? Mute Math seems to have a reputation as a brilliant band, and the whole playing-backwards trick was pretty cool, but “I know there’s got to be another level/Somewhere closer to the other side” might as well be a Backstreet Boys lyric. Good thing the hook in the chorus is so catchy.
.” Yes, I know “
” was far more successful on both sides of the Atlantic, but having listened to Stereophonics’ earlier output, I felt like I’d heard “Dakota” too many times before – “
” is a similar yet better song in the same pseudo-punk vein, and “
”
.” Great song, but overplayed to the point where I can still only take it in limited doses. One of the top intro bass lines in rock history.
.” Surprised this never caught on as a “get amped” song at sporting events. Because it … gets you amped. I still have no idea what the shrieking voice says in the chorus.
.” How long before we brand these guys one-hit wonders? And am I the only one who wasn’t sure if the lead singer was male or female? Great song in the single edit, but the outro to the album track is just late-60s wanking, and I doubt there’s been a bigger letdown for me when learning the actual lyrics to any song. “That same old decent lazy-eye?” Uh, okay.
.” And the first track on their next album, “
,” was great and much more uptempo, which deked me into buying the entire thing only to discover that it sucked. But “Somewhere” is a beautiful lament along the lines of Coldplay’s “Trouble,” but with more urgency and less dirge.
.” I think this is the newest (by release date) song on the list, although that’s a function of my attempt to avoid excessive recent-ism in putting the top 40 together. It’s the best White Stripes song not written or recorded by the White Stripes.
.” I understand that “Clocks” is The Hit for these guys, but I was burned out on that song within a year, even before the Jays used it in a video montage at the end of the 2003 season to pay tribute to Roy Halladay’s (presumed, at the time) Cy Young-winning performance. I heard this song at a Coldplay concert from their first tour, and that opening riff made it the most memorable song of the night, even though I’d never heard it before.
.” I’m not sure I would have even discovered this if it wasn’t by the former lead singer of the Stone Roses, since it garnered no airplay that I know of in the U.S. and is probably the most bizarre song on the list, with no percussion and an incongruous trumpet solo. Then again, Brown’s solo stuff has all been weird and compelling, so while this isn’t as good as “
,” it’s his best song of the decade.
.” If you’re into old-school guitar rock at all, you had to like this song, right? The opening lick was hypnotic, and the producer tweaked every bit for maximum bombast. Sort of a guy’s guy song. I would have been surprised if they’d ever cooked up anything close to this good again.
.” Cee-Lo’s “
,” from his 2002 solo debut, gets an honorable mention here, too. Of course, “Crazy” ended up massively overplayed, and at this point I could stand a six-month break from it. 
.” I’ve mentioned this one before – I’m something of a sucker for Irish folk songs or, as with “Float,” songs that bring that sound forward into a sort of folk-rock hybrid. Few do it well and this, to me, is the pinnacle.
.” And let me just state for the record that I was all over this song a year before Budweiser stuck it on their commercials. There really is no justification for using a song this good to advertise a beer that bad.
.” This was the first Interpol song that didn’t sound to me like a blatant Joy Division ripoff (not that that’s even a bad thing, as there are forty million worse bands to rip off than JD), and also showed their deft hand at manipulating tempo and layering to create a full, textured song with a cathartic release in the final chorus.
.” I thought these guys were supposed to be the next big thing, but this turned out to be their only … I can’t quite call it a hit. But the mix of sneer and despair in the vocals and the plaintive lead guitar line before each verse gave the song a Smiths vibe without a needless Morrissey impersonation.
.” Either that main guitar riff hooks you on the first listen, or it annoys the hell out of you and you can’t get it out of your head for weeks. Needless to say I’m in group one, and the added layering as the song goes on just builds a tension that’s only broken by the quieter counterpoint in each chorus.
.” If the Kings of Convenience had been right and quiet really was the new loud, the Swedish band Sambassadeur would have been huge. As it was, they had to settle for royalties from a Payless Shoes commercial and a spot on my iPod. The song would be unbearably twee if it wasn’t for the lead singer’s slightly smoky voice and faint Swedish accent.
.” The skinny ties and matching outfits were stupid, but they churned out a few memorable bone-crunchers, including this song and “Walk Idiot Walk.”
album would cross over, but their sound was probably 25 years late and five years early, as ’70s guitar rock seemed to make a comeback at the end of the decade with songs like Wolfmother’s entry on the list.
.” The best fake band ever? I suppose an angry Rutles fan will show up in the comments to flame me. The hip pick for decade-end lists is “Feel Good Inc.,” another great song and one boosted by De La Soul’s best output since 3 Feet High and Rising, but this remix of an otherwise unremarkable song from Gorillaz’ debut has been on my main playlist since I first entered the digital music player world five or six years ago.
.” I don’t generally get excited about politically-themed lyrics, but these were spot-on, in large part because Jack White picked a topic you could actually address in three minutes of words. Oh, and the song rocks.
.” Nu-rave died fast, yet the Klaxons, one of its leading lights, lived on. Good luck getting the chorus out of your head.
.” Johnny Marr’s revenge. I also think of this as the great pop song the Pixies never made.
.” A bouncy, sing-along (and ironic) track inspired by one of my favorite novels. The whole album, Haughty Melodic (an anagram of “Michael Doughty”), was excellent, although this was clearly the best track. I still miss Soul Coughing. 
.” “No One Knows” is a great song, but nothing could top this sinister groove from their first album, Rated R, the perfect marriage of a subtle melody and detuned guitars.
.” The best Prince song by an artist other than Prince. 
.” Not normally my style of music, but guitar riffs from Tom Morello and a contribution from a member of underground rap group Styles of Beyond plus a driving beat make for a hell of a driving or workout song.
.” Requires no explanation, I assume.
.” A bit forgotten as the music scene changed over the course of the decade, but it’s a catchy song dripping with snark aimed at the indie music scene.
.” Not their usual straight-ahead rocker, but they manage to update a Motown-esque sound into their minimalist musical style with plenty of wordplay in the lyrics. I probably could have put another half-dozen White Stripes songs on this list without much of a stretch.
.” The best hip-hop song of the decade, assuming you accept it as hip-hop instead of R&B or soul or just … great music.
.” Still like this song as much now as when I first heard it, if not more. Spawned dozens of imitators, none of which produced a song this good.
.” Brilliant track from a brilliant album. I do wish these idiots hadn’t made themselves soft-rock icons with XY, because it has hurt their credibility as artists trying to expand the boundaries of pop (or pop/rock) music.
.” They did have another minor success with “Ruby,” but I think they’re really destined to go down as one of rock’s greatest one-hit wonders with this bizarre, relentless song that pairs despairing lyrics with an upbeat track.
.” (
. And all that that novel ever did was win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It is as if the literary world was saying:
, the story of John Ames Boughton, in 2008.
. I just can’t stand seeing it on five of my “greatest” booklists without a check mark next to it, or at least the knowledge that I gave it a legitimate effort.
won the Spiel des Jahres award in 2007, beating out four games I’ve never heard of, although I suppose that’s not automatically a bad thing. It’s a fun game, on the lighter side of the German-style games we’ve played, more at the level of 
is barely a novel at a scant 123 pages and under 40,000 words, but was apparently a major influence on post-colonial literature in Latin America, most famously as the book that inspired Gábriel García Márquez to write One Hundred Years of Solitude. Rulfo’s use of magical realism doesn’t seem all that groundbreaking today, but at the time it was published, it was.
, the most recent winner of the prestigious 
, although I’m sure that’s only a drawback for a limited number of players. Setup is simple if you use the tray and guide to put the cards away after each game, but that in itself is a process so you’re going to lose some time in either setup or cleanup whenever you play. Two-player games take us under an hour; having the third player added a little complexity with the small number of “attack” cards in the deck by increasing the incentive to buy and use such cards, but we can also now say with some certainty that it’s a quick game to pick up, since all three of us grasped it quickly.
. It contains two collections of short stories plus one Jeeves novel.
, a 2-4 person game with some shades of Settlers of Catan but without the initial-placement phase that plays such a huge role in determining who wins in Settlers.
, which appears at #72 on the Modern Library 100 and is on the (unranked) TIME 100. As you might imagine, the novel details the lifelong desire of Mohun Biswas, an Indian man born to expatriate parents in Trinidad, for a house of his own, as much for what it represents (independence, status, success, dignity, masculinity) as what it provides (privacy, stability, an escape from his insane in-laws). But Mr. Biswas is no up-from-nothing Horatio Alger hero – he’s petulant, immature, and incredibly self-centered to the point of all but ignoring his brilliant young son until the son’s academic efforts promise to shine respect upon his father.
.