Vicky Cristina Barcelona

An interesting Woody Allen film. I'm not sure why Penelope Cruz deserved an Oscar for her performance: she was far better in Volver. Still, this movie was well written with a clever set of twists. Javier Bardem looked good: certainly a far cry from his role in No Country for Old Men!

Battlestar Galactica ends

Well, one of the great TV series has ended. I watched the last episode on hulu.com, since I don't have cable television. A satisfying ending, if a bit mysterious. I'm going to have to go back and slowly rewatch all 5 seasons someday: the writing was just incredible!

Wordle

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Neat: it's a Java applet that generates a word picture from a web page/blog/RSS feed. Here's one for my blog.

The Last Days of Old Beijing

A colleague at work recommended this book, and it's definitely worth a read. The author, Michael Meyer, spent two years living in a Beijing hutong. The book is a historical record of a rapidly changing Beijing; it's a history of Beijing's changes over the centuries; it's a commentary on living in tightly knit communities; it's a nostalgic look at old ways of living. The sad part of the book is how it depicts the ways in communities are uprooted for the sake of progress; the uplifting part is the way in which the people in those communities survive and endure the changes.

One of the most interesting bits of commentary comes from a Chinese intellectual, Feng Jicai, who wants to preserve the old ways of living: "Average people, unlike intellectuals, have no interest in preserving traditional and immaterial heritage, because they do not understand the values of it." Possibly accurate, highly elitist, and it reflects the fact that poor people don't want to stay poor. The conflict inherent in that statement echoes the author's feelings about China.

This book's topic reminds me of another book I just finished, "Gang Leader for a Day". Both books are written by middle-class Americans who spend time in marginalized communities, and who illustrate how those communities are vibrant and full of life.

Battlestar Galactica

Vacation is a wonderful thing (especially since we don't have cable at home), as is Hulu. (Have you seen Alec Baldwin's ad for Hulu, which first showed during the Super Bowl? It is hilarious.) I've caught up on the last season of Battlestar Galactica this vacation: what amazing storytelling! I can't wait for tonight's episode.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

A beautiful film, but I suspect that the book is far better. I was impressed by the subject's tenaciousness in writing a book, despite his loss of almost all of his motor skills. The film puts me at a loss for words, which says something, I suppose.

Heimlich Maneuver

Well, I got to perform the Heimlich maneuver today in a restaurant. There was a commotion at a neighboring table, with someone yelling for a doctor. The victim was not able to speak or cough, and I asked the person holding him if he could do the Heimlich maneuver. He either didn't know or didn't understand my question, because he said "yes" and handed off the victim to me. So I gave him one instance of the maneuver, and he started to be able to talk. It worked!

Afterwards, I was shocked that no one at his table seemed to know the Heimlich; either that, or they were all panicking. Read up on your basic safety information...

Lord Jim

Peter O'Toole as an uptight British seaman. This movie feels very dated, given the cinematography, treatment of the "native" peoples, and the heavy makeup on O'Toole. Not a fantastic movie, but still enjoyable to watch.

Gang Leader For a Day

The author of "Gang Leader For a Day" first came to prominence in Freakonomics. This book describes how Sudhir Venkatesh spent his graduate-school career hanging out in a poor black community in Chicago: in particular, learning about the operations of a drug gang. It is an entertaining read, but ultimately not very illuminating.

The Rest is Noise

I've been reading this wonderful book for the last 2 months or so, and finally finished it on a plane to Florida. The liner notes describe it well: it is a history of the 20th century as seen through the lens of "classical" music. Alex Ross clearly has a deep knowledge of music (not just classical): I learned a lot about the interplay between jazz, classical music, and pop/rock. It was interesting to learn that the Who's song "Baba O'Riley" was titled after a minimalist composer, for example.

This was a beautiful, illuminating read; Ross deserved the MacArthur award that he received for writing it. If you like music, you should love this book.

Man On Wire

Wow, I can see why this was nominated for an Oscar in 2008. Beautiful film, and capturing the Mission-Impossible-like caper was done extremely well.

Donburiya

Pretty inexpensive, fast, and good Japanese food. A little hard to get to, given that it's in between two subway stops. But worth a visit: there's a little cluster of Japanese groceries/delis/restaurants here.

The Man Who Killed His Brother

Good plane-ride fare, although I read this mostly in the airport. Typical Donaldson intensity; worth reading if you like intense mysteries.

The Prisoner

Well, this post is really about Patrick McGoohan, who created and starred in The Prisoner. He passed away last week, which was sad. Cult classic that is a must-watch!

Niko's

We ventured up to the Upper West Side for a few hours and had dinner at this Greek restaurant. Really good food, and a lot of it, with a nice ambiance and at pretty reasonable prices. Definitely worth going to!

The Wire: Season 5

We finished watching the final season of HBO's fantastic series "The Wire". Outstanding storytelling, incisive social commentary, depressing morality play: it has it all. I used to think that Battlestar Galactica was the best TV I've ever seen, but The Wire is better. If you read my blog, you must watch this series!

The Man Who Tried to Get Away

I quickly read this mystery novel by one of my favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors, Stephen R. Donaldson. He's best known for his books about Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. I like his writing, although it's intensely psychological and deals with extremely screwed-up protagonists: but protagonists who find their strengths in their faults.

Nudge

This book, about how choices should be "architected" because of how people behave like humans and not economic engines, is interesting. Too bad too much of the book is devoted to justifying the authors' philosophy (which they call "libertarian paternalism"). Otherwise, it's a decent book in the constellation of books that talk about the intersection of psychology and economics.

The Essential Difference

This book by Simon Baron-Cohen (yes, he is the brother of Sasha Baron-Cohen!) talks about a lot of research that examines the differences between men and women. Simplistically, he characterizes men as (on average) better at systemizing, and women as better at empathy. Highly believable, and he quotes a lot of relevant research. Interesting...

Body Language

This book was an interesting read, and I wish I had read it earlier in my life. Oh well! It tells you how to interpret/understand your own body's and other people's bodies' signals.

First, Break All The Rules

This book is a fascinating compilation of the lessons learned by Gallup when they interviewed great managers. If I were to characterize the lessons implied by its 12 employee concerns, they are: treat everyone as individuals.

Read the book if you're a manager. It's extremely good.

The Lucifer Effect

The Lucifer Effect is a compelling story about The Stanford Prison Experiment, as well as how its conclusions relate to what happened at Abu Gharib. Scary stuff.

Watch the clip of Zimbardo's interview with Stephen Colbert. Entertaining, if sort of beside the point of the book.

The Last Lecture

This book, written by computer scientist Randy Pausch after his "last lecture" (which he gave after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer), has some common-sense advice for living one's life. A bit overrated, though; it wasn't as moving as I thought as it would be. It was illuminating, and mildly thought-provoking, but a little too self-absorbed (unsurprisingly).

Food

Nicholas Kristof's article in the NY Times pointed me at this petition. I signed it, as I tend to trust Kristof and Michael Pollan's judgment.

Tropic Thunder

I needed a funny movie, and Netflix obliged by sending me this funny spoof. Great cast, decent writing, and a semi-predictable plot (with many unpredictable details). Tom Cruise was hilarious as a crass movie mogul!

The Ascent of Money

The Ascent of Money is an interesting book, although pretty flawed as a general piece of non-fiction. It covers rather quickly the evolution of four underpinnings of modern finance: the bond market, the stock market, insurance, and the real estate market. Niall Ferguson brings up rather interesting (and relevant) historical warnings that show that today's financial meltdown should not really have been unexpected. However, the book is not written for a layperson: Prof. Ferguson tosses around lots of financial jargon without much explanation. The Economist's review is pretty apt. Still, I found it to be a mildly entertaining read, and it complemented the book A Splendid Exchange well (although Bernstein's book is better).

The Norman Conquests

I read the entire trilogy of plays, The Norman Conquests, by Alan Ayckbourn. (That reminds me of an episode of The Family Guy I saw recently, where the family goes to London and watches an incomprehensible play.) After we saw the first play on Broadway, I decided I wanted to read the whole trilogy. Very funny, although I think I would appreciate it even more to see it performed: I kept envisioning the actors we saw in their roles.

Novita

We ate dinner at this relatively high-end Italian restaurant: it was very good food, although pricey. It's really hard to judge whether food is worth the money: overall, I'd say that it was, but that I wouldn't eat at the restaurant frequently. For special occasions, the food was worth it.

The Sexual Paradox

Susan Pinker's book is fascinating: it is about what she has seen as the differences between men and women in her practice as a psychologist, a lot of related research, and some interviews with various men and women. The book is sprinkled with a little too much non-quantitative data, but the interviews are interesting. The basic question of that the author tries to answer is: is it possible to have equality of measured outcomes with respect to male/female balance in workplaces, or do differences between the ways that men and women make choices inherently lead to different measured outcomes? Her answer is the latter: that men and women are biologically different, and when given choices, will make different ones that will lead to different outcomes.

Tosca

We were inspired to watch Tosca after seeing Quantum of Solace. Netflix only had this production on DVD, which was pretty good. Jose Cura was really good as Mario; the rest of the cast was OK.

Stretching

Dynamic stretching is better for you than static stretching. Worth a read!

Good Reads

A friend of mine, Mark Flanagan, convinced me to sign up for this website last year. I decided to try it out; we'll see how useful it is.

The Time Paradox

This book is worth reading, although it rambles on a bit. Zimbardo (who was the infamous psychologist who conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment) and John Boyd talk about how you can classify your personality based on your attitudes towards the past, the present, and the future. Take the assessment test on the website!

Obama on 60 Minutes

Our President-elect is giving a great interview on 60 Minutes tonight. He's smart, eloquent, funny, and careful. I can't believe people can even compare Sarah Palin to him: she can't even say one sentence that makes sense, whereas Obama has am amazing ability to communicate.

Quantum of Solace

We saw this film on opening night, after getting tickets at 8pm. The theater was pretty full, but not packed: if our experience is typical, then the movie will make a good deal of money, but not a ton.

Overall, the film was not that good a story. However, it was entertaining, if you like action and lots of violence and death. We watched a little of Casino Royale on DVD beforehand (and the rest afterwards), which helped us get some more context for Quantum of Solace.

Fierce Conversations

I quickly read through this interesting book about, well, life. It talks about how one should always be engaged in conversations that address in important issues head-on (but in a cooperative fashion). All in all, a lot of common sense; but a book worth a quick read to remind one to act with common sense.

The Little Foxes

We watched Bette Davis in The Little Foxes on DVD. A fine, albeit depressing, play about the destructiveness of greed. Fairly predictable, but still a good movie.

The Wire

We finished The Wire, Season 4. Wow, such great television! This series is the best television that we've ever watched. Season 4 widened the scope to involve many more players: it's grand storytelling that manages to weave multiple storylines together seamlessly. You must watch this TV show!

The Seven Boards of Skill

This show is not really describable: it is a combination of modern circus acrobatics and Peking opera, and could almost be categorized as "modern dance". It was a fascinating production, and there were some moments of startling beauty. The production was written and directed by some Frenchmen, and it felt very abstract as well (in that undefinable French way). If you get a chance to see it, I would recommend it highly.

Thomas Biesl

We had dinner at this Austrian restaurant before seeing a show at BAM. Since the restaurant is right across the street from BAM, it is very convenient: and the service was really fast. The sauerbraten was pretty good, although more meat-heavy than how I normally eat. If you're going to BAM, this restaurant's not a bad choice.

Ghenet

We had Ethiopian food at this restaurant in Nolita. Reasonably priced, and very good: surprisingly, it wasn't too busy (although we were there on the early side, by New York standards).

Obama

I'm blogging this after the fact, but (as with many of my entries) I try to date them appropriately. As I walked home from an election-day party, New York seemed to be filled with elation. People were screaming from their apartments, and just walking down the street yelling, "Obama!". One of my coworkers went to Harlem and said it was a big street party; another coworker went to Union Square, which was another big celebration. It was an invigorating election night: finally, the "long dark night" of the last eight years is nearing an end.

A Splendid Exchange

William Bernstein's history of trade is a fascinating read about how people have always sought to make money through trade. The historical information is wonderful (who would have known that global trade was pervasive in the 1650's?), and some of the analysis in the final chapter (which summarizes some of modern economic theory) is pretty interesting. Well worth reading!

Pamplona

Pretty good tapas, although not cheap. Nice atmosphere, and it wasn't that noisy.

Wire, Season 4

Another season of the Wire: this one focusing on the educational system. It's too bad this drama isn't still ongoing: it would be worth it to get cable and HBO just for this series.

Lars and the Real Girl

I loved this movie! It's a beautiful reflection on the human need for love and companionship. The cast was excellent, and the writing was exquisite.

Be Kind Rewind

Jack Black and Mos Def in a fable about making movies. Entertaining, but not that good.

Measuring the World

I seem to be on a mild kick reading modern German literature. This historical novel about Gauss and von Humboldt is a beautiful reflection on identity and fighting/discovering it through battling the world. Gauss does it through his math (and escaping the world), and von Humboldt does it by exploring South America (and escaping Europe).

The Best Man

Predictable romantic comedy that has echoes of Cyrano de Bergerac. Funny at times, but overall just good enough to keep me awake on a long airplane flight.

Get Smart

This Get Smart wasn't quite as funny as the original TV show, but it was passable. Maxwell Smart as played by Steve Carell wasn't an incompetent boob, just a nerdy fool.

Hancock

I didn't think that I would like Hancock, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was fun, and well-positioned for a sequel.

The Reader

A beautiful book that captures the impact of desire and regret on a life. The complex interweaving of modern German history into the story is brilliantly done.

Taming of the Shrew

We saw a British theater troupe's production of Taming of the Shrew in Beijing, which verged on excellent. A few minor flaws, but overall it was funny, easy to understand, and a creative production. The troupe of about 6 was highly talented: they acted, sang, and danced.

Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love

A nice collection of short stories about food and love. Some are touching, some are ironic, some are funny. The funniest one is where two women compete for a man by cooking for him, and he winds up choking on their food.

Shooter

We watched this movie on HBO while traveling in China. Mark Wahlberg is always entertaining. Very violent and predictable, but that's the genre!

Hangzhou

 

This is a photo of West Lake in Hangzhou. It's a beautiful place to visit!

Shanghai

 

Little girl eating a persimmon. She looked so happy with her fruit that I had to takek her picture.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wau

A wondrous, poetic novel about a geeky kid who is into sci-fi and comics. A tragic story, although it wasn't sad, for some reason.

Amusingly, the author is a professor at MIT. Pretty cool!

Bridge of Sighs

Another brilliant novel by Richard Russo. I love his writing, and his ability to capture the emotional rhythms of life. This novel did not seem to get reviews as good as Empire Falls did, but I really enjoyed reading it. Highly recommended!

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull

What a weird Indiana Jones movie: it turned into weird sci-fi reminiscent of ET! Boy, and Indy sure looked old...

Land of the Dead

Gotta love George Romero and zombies! Brains...this one was quite entertaining --- it is always fun to see Dennis Hopper play the bad guy.

Forbidden Kingdom

A mildly entertaining time-travel/fantasy/martial-arts movie. Jet Li and Jackie Chan together, which was fun.

Matrix 3

I watched a bunch of movies on the flight to China: this was the first. I'm glad I didn't pay to watch Matrix 3 in the theatre: it was crazily nonsensical. But as in-flight entertainment it wasn't that bad.

Sarah Palin

Wow, what an awful performance at the debate. They might as well have just used the random text generator I linked to to generate her answers. She avoided substantive answers, or just dodged the questions. Amusingly, she kept saying that Biden kept focusing on the past, but then said that she and McCain had learned from the blunders of the past. Gwen Ifill should have asked her, "What Bush-administration blunders have you learned from?"

Wanted

I ran into the comic Wanted, which was written by Mark Millar (author of the Ultimates). This comic was turned into a movie this year (which I hadn't known). The movie didn't have the superhero background, apparently.

This comic demonstrates a wickedly warped sense of humor, if you're into such things.

Jaya

I had lunch with some friends at this Malay restaurant. The food is quite authentic (my friend Elaine is from Singapore), and it was very tasty. Definitely worth a trip!

Obama vs. McCain

Lots of news about last night's debate, unsurprisingly. We turned it off after a while: it was just annoying to listen to. It was highly depressing/amusing to listen to both candidates duck Jim Lehrer's pointed question about how they would be constrained by the bailout. Obama was not a smooth debater, and we thought McCain was much smoother and more confident (although his comments were not very substantive). We mostly watched the post-debate analysis on PBS, which was more fun than the debate itself.

Secret History of the American Empire

If you haven't read John Perkins' first book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, it's worth a read. It confirms all the theories of a big conspiracy to maintain American economic power. I didn't finish this book, mostly because it is too depressing: it is hard to evaluate the truth of every claim in the book, but it certainly has the ring of truth.

Heroes

Usually I find it hard to stop watching an episode of any semi-interesting TV show. Which means that the premiere of Season 3 of Heroes was not even semi-interesting. Season 2 sucked, and Season 3 looks like it will be worse. Oh well, at least I'll be wasting less time watching television!

Jhegaala

Stephen Brust's books are like candy: they are quick to read and entertaining, with a nice aftertaste. This latest book in the series (in publication order, not in chronological story-telling order) is similar to all of his other Vlad Taltos books: so, if you liked the earlier books, you will enjoy reading this one. I enjoyed it.

Subway flood protection

Artistic yet functional. Nice!

Jay Lepreau

I think I'm still in shock over the news that Jay has passed away. For those of you that didn't know him, Jay was a professor at the University of Utah that I worked with. I didn't know that he had been sick, and apparently even those who knew were shocked at the suddenness of his passing.

The obituary captures my remembrances of Jay well. Rest in peace.

Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton

Outstanding satire: Tina Fey captures Sarah Palin exactly!

At one point this year I thought I could vote for McCain, but this was the last straw: he has shown that he cares about nothing but his own desire to be President of the US. His claim that he puts country first is either completely false or shows that he is completely deluded: Sarah Palin is certainly not qualified to be the President.

Shortcomings

This is a cute little comic that centers around some really dysfunctional people. The central character is the most dysfunctional, and he cannot handle being Asian-American in Berkeley. I didn't find the characters that compelling, but the writing was pretty good.

The Wire, Season 2

We finished watching the second season of The Wire. Wow, such great writing and acting! This show is some of the best television that we have ever seen, but it does paint a bleak portrait of modern inner-city America.

Art of the Royal Court

The last major exhibit we saw at the Met was of "pietre dure": carving in hardstone. Treasures from Europe that one never sees (including a national treasure from Russia): it was unbelievably sumptuous. If you are into beautiful things, you should go see this exhibit.

Tara Donovan at the Met

We walked through this installation, which was cool to see. Not as cool as the photos on the Met's web site, though.

Jeff Koons on the Roof (of the Met)

An amusing exhibition, but it was so sunny that I was blinded by the contrast between the Met's roof and the inside of the museum. The dog was cute!

Turner at the Met

Wonderful exhibit. We saw this at the National Gallery in 2007, and also walked through it briefly when it opened at the Met a few months ago. We had to go take a stroll through it before it closed: what is utterly amazing is how Turner's late works anticipated the Impressionists by 50 years. In addition, Turner's ability to make oils look like watercolors was just stunning.

US Open

 

It's become a semi-tradition (OK, only this year and last year) for me to go to a US Open match with my friend Paul. This year we got to see an exhibition match between Todd Martin and Michael Chang, and then a quarterfinal match between Andy Roddick and Novak Djokovic. Andy blew it: he was on the verge of taking Djokovic to a fifth set, and double faulted twice at 30-30 while serving for the fourth set. And on the last point, he went for a drop shot from the baseline! Cojones, but not wise.

Hilarity at the RNC

The RNC speeches have been hilarious tonight. Linda Lingle, the governor of Hawaii, is making fun of the fact that Alaska is 250 times larger than Delaware (Joe Biden's state). This is coming from the governor of Hawaii??!!! No offense to my Hawaiian friends.

Chrome!

A new web browser from Google. It seems pretty zippy, at least for the web sites that I've tried. Cool!

Elevated Acre

 

We visited this small park in the financial district: the above photo shows you the wonderful view of the Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn, and Governor's Island. You can see 3 of the waterfalls, although the one on Governor's Island is off at the time of the photo.

Democratic National Convention

I watched much of the prime-time coverage of the convention this year, which I have never done before. The Clintons gave some great speeches, as did Obama: probably Obama's biggest problem is how high the expectations are for his speeches. He certainly moved the crowd, although clearly not the ever-obnoxious David Brooks (read his NY Times editorial from the following day).

Amalia

It's still Restaurant "Week", so we decided to try another restaurant. Very good Mediterranean food at Amalia; the short ribs were OK, but the pasta was better. The starter of watermelon gazpacho was excellent. And the panna cotta was delicious!

Sex and Lucia

This movie is hauntingly beautiful. It is very strange, and its self-referential circularity is kind of odd. But the story itself is wonderful!

The Wire

We finished Season One, which was awesome. I particularly liked the end scene where Major Rawls asks McNulty where he doesn't want to be reassigned. (You really have to watch the series to understand that line.)

Blogging

Boy, I sure am behind on my blog. I have a backlog of books and movies I've seen that I haven't written about (mostly because I'm not sure that writing anything down on a blog is that interesting, and partially because I'm just lazy). OK, time to catch up today!

Henry Moore: NY Botanical Gardens

This was a nice exhibition that really took advantage of the Garden's beauty. The gardens were not as crowded as during the Chihuly exhibition two summers ago, which made the walk quite pleasant. No crowds!

Sushi Samba

Great place for brunch: $15/person, and you get 4 dishes. We had apple-pear pancakes (excellent), churros (very good), scrambled eggs (yummy), and smoked salmon and whitefish (delicious). Worth visiting, although I bet it is crowded during peak hours. There was a jazz band which was unpleasantly loud at times.

Madiba

South African food in Brooklyn. This restaurant was in a nice spot near BAM, and the food was interesting and tasty. The staff was pretty friendly too, which is always a bonus. I recommend it.

One If By Land

We went here to get dinner, and discovered that it is Restaurant "Week". (Apparently Restaurant Week lasts around a month this summer.) The food was good (as it was the previous time we came here); I'm not sure why TONY says that it has gone downhill. But maybe my palate is not that sophisticated.

Juno

A cute film with some well-written dialogue and a good soundtrack. I see why people liked the movie, but I didn't find it as great as the reviews indicated. Not sure why, though.

Predictable Irrationality

Another book about psychology and economics, which is all the rage. This book was entertaining, but not that well written: it jumps from pretty sensible conclusions about some experiments to over-generalized statements about public policy. And some of the experiments just seem silly. For example, the author placed cans of Coke in student refrigerators at MIT (I wonder if it was in Burton House?): some of them wound up being drunk. However, when he placed plates with dollar bills on them in refrigerators, the dollars were not taken. From this he concludes that people treat $ different from objects. Which may be true, but in the context of this experiment I'd say that having a plate of dollar bills in your refrigerator is an unusual enough sight that most people would consciously avoid the bills.

Still, some amusing stories. Probably the best one is where he explains the experiments where students fill out some surveys while they are sexually aroused.

Consilience

A book with a vision about the unity of science. Unfortunately, it's a yawner (I didn't finish it) and written with a very arrogant tone. But what can you expect from a Harvard professor?

The Wire

We've started watching The Wire on DVD. Amazing television: of course, it's been cancelled. Great writing and acting, and compelling subject matter. The commentary on the DVD talks about how the writers wanted to illustrate the effects of the corporation of all aspects of life: and they've certainly done a wonderful job at that!

Three Cups of Tea

Wow. The protagonist of this biography, Greg Mortenson, seems like an amazing guy. I think I'd hate to work for him, but he does get results in what does: which has been to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. His way is certainly better than President Bush's way!

If you donate money to anyone this year, I think his institute (the Central Asia Institute) is worth donating to.

Charity Navigator rates the Central Asia Institute as a 4-star charity. Given the return on investment on building a school, I think this is a no-brainer.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=10411

Persepolis

We watched this movie on DVD (which was based on a comic of the same name). I liked the comic better, but maybe that was because the movie was just an animated version of the comic with voices. Still, it is a compelling story (in both versions).

Salsa Y Salsa

We were hungry, and wandered into this Mexican place. The food wasn't that memorable (although I'm writing this several weeks after our meal there). But it wasn't as bad as some of the reviews on Yelp.

The Dark Knight

Wow. This film deserves to make a lot of money (which it has). A well-written plot with some great performances. I'm not sure that I agree that Heath Ledger was as great as the critics say, but he certainly did put on a fine performance as the Joker. The Harvey Dent/Two-Face plot was a little too truncated for my taste, but I can't really complain: I loved this movie.