Batman/Houdini: The Devil’s Workshop cover by Mark Chiarello
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Thanksgiving family movie night.
In April 2016, I will be heading back to Rwanda to assist in caring for some kids at an orphanage in Kigali, the nation’s capital. My team members and I will be working with kids who have experienced trauma or who come from a difficult background. We will be focused on providing activities and experiences that teach forgiveness and lead to redemption and healing. Dr. Karyn Purvis, renowned child development psychologist, is fond of saying “Children were harmed in relationship, and the only way they can be healed is through relationship.” That is what this trip is about, to help these kids begin healing by engaging them. They need to know there are people who care about them.
You can assist me with this trip in two ways: one, by praying for me, my team, and the kids we are going to help; and two, by donating to my trip account with Visiting Orphans through purchases in their online store. Yes, you can shop, and help me go to Rwanda!
You can find shirts, hoodies, handmade necklaces and leather cuffs, bracelets, bands, and other charms. You can visit the store at this link:
Visitng Orphans Store
Shop to your heart’s content, and when you are ready to check out, follow these instructions so a percentage of the sales can be donated to my trip:
- On the main checkout page, beneath your billing and shipping address information, you will see a section titled “Donation Information”. Click on the button marked “Team member or ministry name”.
- This will reveal a drop-down menu, and a text box. In the drop-down menu, please select “Rwanda April 2016 Healing Trip (Leader: Higgins)”.
- In the text box for “Team Member”, please type “Christopher Turner”. It should look like this:
That’s it! These are some unique items you cannot find anywhere else, and they make awesome gifts!
iPhone home screen, 5 October 2015 on Flickr.
SPOILER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE MATT DAMON FILM, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, STOP READING. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.
In all Hollywood thrillers, there’s a certain suspension of belief the audience is expected to give. And in every movie, there are gaffes, missteps, and mistakes. But the one scene in The Bourne Identity that has always, and continues, with subsequent viewings, to bother me, is the one at the farmhouse, the confrontation between Jason Bourne and Clive Owen’s character, the Professor.
The plot points us to the Professor being one of Bourne’s equals. They’re both from the Treadstone project. They’re both “super weapons” of a kind. They’re both highly trained, and highly skilled. When Eamon’s dog is missing, and Jason realizes a killer is out there waiting for him, he does what we expect him to do: take the fight to the killer. It’s here the writers take the easy way out.
If the Professor was as highly skilled and as highly trained as we’ve been led to believe up to this point Treadstone agents are, he would never do the following:
- Give up the high ground.
- Give up the quiet shooting ability of the suppressor on his SIG 55x rifle.
- Give up the superior range and firepower of the SIG 55x rifle for a backup pistol.
Jason doesn’t know the Professor’s location. Given the layout of the farmhouse and the surrounding area, he suspects, but he doesn’t know. When he runs out into the trees from the farmhouse, the Professor attempts a shot, and after missing, decides to come down from his perch on the hill? Why give up the high ground, and the sun behind you? Your target is still below you, still within range, just hidden in the trees. Shift your position, attempt to reacquire, but you DON’T COME DOWN FROM ON HIGH.
And as he gives up the high ground, he simultaneously gives up sound suppression on a firearm? Jason Bourne may be the best Treadstone produced, but he still wouldn’t be able to track the shots by sound, even if he suspected the Professor’s hide at the top of the hill. Not at that range.
Finally, after coming down from the hill, the Professor inexplicably takes the only sighting device on the rifle off—why no iron sight backups? He then decides, as the birds Jason sent into flight with a shotgun blast whirl noisily about, to put down the weapon that could reach to any edge of the big clearing they’re in, and take up a small pistol with a more limited range and fewer available rounds.
I just can’t buy it. The film’s technical advisor(s) really let the production down in this area, and allowed the writers a cheap and easy way out to put down the other Treadstone agent on Jason’s trail. Way, way easier than it should have been. At least Castel lost a straight-up, one-on-one fight with Bourne. It is, for me, a thoroughly disappointing scene in an otherwise enjoyable (if imperfect) action thriller.
Today was a great mail day. on Flickr.
iPhone home screen, 3 August 2015
There have been some changes.