This article from BBC News’ Lizo Mzimba makes a good point. Ledger’s performance is not “one note,” but I agree Bale’s performance will be overlooked. There is more than a few movies I have damned as a whole thanks to the failure of only one actor’s performance. DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet being one good example. I will praise The Dark Knight as the sum of its parts, as Bale’s performance manages to be brooding without hamming it up like Thomas Jane in The Punisher or Macguire in Spider-Man 3. I will grant Tobey might actually have done more of Spidey-seething in Spider-Man 2, but 3 is whinier in general.

Ledger’s Joker, bombastic as he is, still feels like someone I would see on a CNN news report, where Nicholson’s was excellent but in the manner of a big top announcer. In the mood and setting of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, a performance like Jack’s would have ruined the mood; Heath Ledger had a monumental task ahead of him, making an uber-psychopath like The Joker believeable, and I think the writer is not giving him enough credit for that.

The BBC pointed me to this: The Periodic Table of Videos. I’ll be watching them all, with a particular interest in the artificial elements.

Warning: Don’t try to read comic book plots when you’re used to the continuity of novella, movies and video games. I do not think I have ever seen people so trapped by their desire to one-up themselves with each series.

Now I read the are “killing” Batman. You know, because that crap worked so well for Superman.

(April 21, 1971 – June 27, 2008)