Epic

After spilling my feelings out in my last blog post I figured it's a good time to write something a little more lighthearted! So why not another film review? Yes, good idea. Well today I shall be reviewing the new film 'Epic', which is out in cinemas now.

When I was looking after my little sister last weekend I asked her if she wanted to go see anything in the cinema, and she said she wanted to see 'Epic'. I didn't know much about the film, but I knew Blue Sky Studios were pretty good, having released such great as Ice Age and Horton Hears A Who. The film also boasted a talented and er, interesting voice cast, featuring the likes of actors Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Josh Hutcherson, Chris O'Dowd, Aziz Ansari, Christoph Waltz and Jason Sudeikis; and musicians Steven Tyler, Beyonce and Pitbull. Yes, Pitbull.

I have to say I actually really enjoyed this film, a lot more than I expected to. A lot more of an adventure story than a comedy, it has its funny moments but overall it presents an engaging storyline of love, family, good versus evil, belonging and defending your home. The characters are extremely likeable, I really found myself drawn into the characters' plights. Plus O'Dowd and Ansari are hilarious as the snail and slug respectively.

Also, can we talk about how beautifully animated this film is?! It's gorgeous!! Just take a look at the trailer here. Okay, maybe I have a thing for forests, and this is pretty much an hour and a half of beautiful forest animation. That makes me a very happy film student. The textures and the colours and just gahhh, I'm not good at describing it. I just really liked it a lot. The trailer here gives you a good idea of the look and feel of the movie. Just lovely. 

I have one complaint - why name the film 'Epic'?! You've just built up an expectation that the film itself will be 'epic', which is pretty ambitious of you, despite how good the film actually is. Also, with the overuse of the word epic on the internet, you've made it notoriously difficult to search for your film online, as the vast majority of what will come up will quite likely be those Epic Win / Epic Fail pics. Bad choice of title guys. But, that is really my only fault with this film!

I'd definitely recommend it for adults and kids alike, head to your local cinema and go watch it!!

Living on a Prayer

Well, as of about 24 hours ago I am back in Northern Ireland for my summer holiday. Second year of university is over. We're half way there! And now I've got 'Living on a Prayer' by Bon Jovi stuck in my head. Anyway... looking back on the year, it's been pretty crazy! I payed bills for the first time in my life, that was very scary and grown up and I didn't like it at all! I made a few films with university, one of which I'm pretty proud of and you can watch and read about here. I took lots of photographs too, and wrote a good few essays. It's been a big learning curve in university, I've discovered what I'm good at and what I'm not good at, which has been a very interesting experience. I did lots of fun stuff like go to the zoo, visit people in England, take a surprise trip home, host a messy flat party, go to other messy flat parties and lots more stuff! Hmmm... what else did I do? Oh yeah, I started going to Central, a church in the centre of Edinburgh, and there I got convinced to sign up for Potential, only the best fellowship I've ever had... like ever!! 

Now any one who knows me well knows that I am a very sentimental/mushy person. And if you didn't know that, well, you're about to find out. You've been warned. 

When I first signed up for Potential, I have to admit I was skeptical. It was an all girls Bible study, and yes, the Bible is great, but all girls? That's a bit risky, eh? We all know what girl groups can be like, there's all the potential for cliques to emerge, for cat fights to break out etc etc. It seemed only natural! Like many I imagine, I personally have not had a good history of being in groups of girls. I'll not bore you with all the details but I have pretty much always found myself on the outside of groups of girls, never quite sure where I stood, feeling pretty left out. So when I signed up for Potential I assumed it would be much of the same story. To use the phrase made famous by Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: I have never been so wrong!

As soon as I turned up on the first week I knew that I was going to get along really well with these girls, but still for the first few weeks I waited for the cliques to emerge, for groups to start making friends around me, but to my delight, it never happened. Very quickly we became a giant close-knit group of friends, who were constantly encouraging and building each other up. We studied the Bible together, prayed for each other, and had an awful lot of laughs at the same time! I was welcomed into this group with open arms, and always felt so loved whenever I walked into that kitchen every Tuesday night. And I wasn't the only one! Any of the other girls I talked to about their experience of it agreed that they loved this fellowship. One thing I loved about it was that girls who only turned up once or twice were treated no differently from girls who had been every week. That's brilliant. Turns out not all girl groups have to involve a negative experience, in fact, they they can be quite the opposite!

I'm very grateful for Potential and all the girls there right now. Through all that support and community,  I believe I have grown a lot this year, in both confidence, maturity, and my faith. I've begun to face a lot of my fears, some I didn't even realise I had before, some that have been really dragging me down for years and years. But all that is starting to get better! Without them I don't think I would have had the courage or determination to get up in front of 400ish people and tell my testimony and get baptised. I feel I have a lot better of an understanding of what God wants me to do with my life, and I'm slowly beginning to sort myself out, to start changing for the better, so that I may do that. 

To the Potential girls reading this right now, I guess I just wanted you to know how grateful I am for you. You guys are are amazing, God is doing awesome things through you all! You all have become very important to me. Keep being those wonderful ladies you are. I love you and miss you! Thank you for a great year and I'm excited for starting a new one with you all as my friends!! Now trust me, I could write pages and pages more on how great you all are and how much you make me laugh and how you've helped me etc etc but there's only so much cheesy stuff I can write in one post before I just turn into a massive block of mozzarella or something. So I'll leave it here. But yeah, I love you guys. Thank you.

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:13

Laughable

"He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision." Psalm 4:2

I had a very humbling experience yesterday. For a while I'd been struggling with a few things. Pretty much I wanted to become a better person, and I wanted to do good things for God. I had faith in God, and I truly believed that He could make me a better person and help me do the things he wanted me to do. But there was a voice in the back of my mind, holding me back, telling me I wasn't good enough. I had faith in God alright, but absolutely no faith in myself. Self doubt is something that cripples me a lot. It was like although I knew God had the power, I didn't trust myself to be open enough or 'spiritual' enough to let God do these things within me. Does that make sense? I dunno, but it was something that I had been thinking. I just felt completely useless before God, too useless to be changed for the better. 

It was something I hadn't thought about for a while, but I brought it up last night in a discussion with some fellow students in my church. On the way home I brought it up in prayer again, and this time I felt a response. It's not often that I really feel a response when I pray, so it was a pretty exciting moment. What was the response I felt? Well, I felt God laugh at me. Yep, you read that right. Not in a mean way, or a harsh way, but a loving way. The way a father would laugh at his tantruming two year old, full of love and empathy. I felt that he was asking me, "So, what you're implying here, is that you think your inability is powerful enough to hinder my ability? Ha! If I wanted to change something within you, do you honestly think you could stop me? Who are you?"

Well, I just had to laugh at myself as well. What an idiot I was being! My inability, my uselessness, my stupidity, my failures; they are all irrelevant with God, because He is above and beyond them all. I was reminded of that part of the Exodus story, when Moses encounters God at the burning bush. Moses complains of his own weakness and God puts him in his place, reminding him that he is powerful above all weakness. It's probably one of my favourite bits in the Bible, I love it because Moses reminds me a lot of myself at this point, scared and doubtful. "Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”" - Exodus 4:10-12

I think it's good to laugh at yourself, it's humbling. Maybe we should do that more often. And don't ever feel like you're too far gone for God to fix, or not good enough for him to do anything with. Yeah, we're broken, we're messed up, but that's what's amazing about God, he can still fix us and use us, and he chooses to do so. Cool.

The Facebook Generation

Facebook. Facebook Facebook Facebook. It's one of those things we love to hate, yet cling unto desperately. I personally would love to just delete my Facebook account and be done with it, but unfortunately it's just too useful for keeping in touch with people I wouldn't other wise be able to keep in touch with. However, last night I did get my friend list down from over 650 people to less than 130, making it only coursemates, church famiy, close friends from home, and relatives i.e. the people who I do use it to talk to regularly. I was just getting distracted by having so much unnecessary stuff on there. 

I think my generation especially really needs to sit back and think about the way we use social networking sites such as Facebook. I know I'm so guilty at signing up to a million different sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Blogger; I just love being connected in various different ways. I love sharing. But is this always a good thing? I don't think so. 

Part of the reason I cut my friends list was because of conversations I'd been having through this documentary film below. Who made this documentary film? Oh yeah, I did, tehe! Yes, this is my uni film from this semester, made by me and three of my wonderful coursemates Christina, Eilidh and Rhian. All great girls. When Christina pitched the idea for the film I knew I really wanted to be part of it, and so I took on the role of editor, which I had a lot of fun doing. I'd love to work with those girls again. We got to interview my good friend Claudia and three others whom I hadn't met previously - Eoghann, Sebb and Tony. I would love it if you gave it a watch and told me what you think!