Adam White

Spoiler Alert: While there is no surprise twist in this film, in order to review this film I will be talking about how it ends.

Firstly, a brief plot synopsis. (500) Days of Summer tells the tale of the 500 days that greeting card creator Tom Hansen (played brilliantly by the ever watchable Joseph Gordon-Levitt) spends in and out of a relationship with quirky Summer Finn (played wide eyed and perfectly wacky by Zooey Deschanel).

However, rather than play out from day 1 to day 500 this film jumps and skips around through the relationship. One minute Tom is skipping around madly in love on day (53) and then we zoom forward to day (234) and he is trying to understand why the relationship is over and then we are taken right back to the first time he ever sees her on day (1).

It took a little while to get used to this jumping around but soon it became normal and gave the film that “something different” to help it stand out from the crowd.

But this is also no normal rom-com. At the start Tom believes in “the one” and thinks he has found her in Summer. Summer on the other hand doesn’t believe in relationships. So for a while they seem to be getting on so well and Tom is starting to tear down some of Summer’s walls but then, seemingly out of the blue, Summer decides to end it. This tears Tom apart and he just can’t understand why.

This causes Tom to re-evaluate love and he comes to the conclusion that Summer is right: Love doesn’t really exist and actually life is painful and we just have to enjoy it while we can. Summer however ends up falling in love herself and getting married to a man she meets in a coffee shop! Suddenly she starts to believe in love and fate. A complete reversal in roles!

I really wanted to love this film when I walked into the cinema but when I left I felt incredibly sad. I pondered this emotion for a while and then it occurred to me why I felt like I didn’t like the film.

(I’m going to get fairly personal now so be warned!)

The reason this film left me feeling so down was because it actually reminded me a little too much of a relationship I had been in myself a number of years ago. Now this is not to say it was exactly the same but there were definite themes that came a little too close for comfort.

Once upon a time I met a woman who immediately captured my heart. I fell madly in love. The fact that I am now single says that this relationship didn’t last though. I came out of the relationship experiencing every emotion I knew existed (and some I didn’t). And then less than a year (I think) after we parted she got married to someone else.

I need to state clearly though that I am still great friends with this person and I love them to bits. I see clearly that we were not meant to be together but that didn’t stop the relationship from having a huge impact on me. For one it was a result of this relationship that my eyes were opened to the possibility that God and Jesus might exist (read my testimony if you want to know more). God knew exactly what He was doing and I really believe that I am a much better and stronger man today because of it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t really hurt at the time.

So watching this film was like a sub-conscious reminder of that time in my life. I was feeling the emotions of Tom as he was feeling them on screen and I was hoping that he and Summer would stay together even though I knew in my heart that they wouldn’t.

As soon as I realised why I felt like this I could appreciate the film for what it was which is a very intelligent, funny and different romantic comedy.

I just hope God brings me an Autumn of my own one day! (A reference that you won’t get until you see the film).

[7/10]

Posted by Adam under Films & Personal | 1 Comment »

Don’t you find that Christians make being a Christian more complicated than it is meant to be?

You don’t become a Christian by coming to church every Sunday without fail.

You don’t become a Christian by praying a “special prayer”.

The gospel can be summed up in one sentence. And it is in the most famous sentence in the entire bible…

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. – John 3:16

But what does this verse mean to us? It can be broken down into four easy to remember words:

“For God so LOVED the world” – Firstly God loved us. Before we did anything and even though we don’t deserve it He loved us unconditionally. No matter how far we wander from him and no matter how much we ignore him he loves us more than can be understood.

“That he GAVE his one and only Son” – In fact, he loved us so much that he gave us the thing that was most precious to him: His son. To restore the gulf that was between us and God he gave up his only son, he sent him into human history to live, suffer and die for nothing that he did wrong but for everything we ever did wrong.

“That whoever BELIEVES in him” – And all we have to do is believe. No special prayer. No clever ritual. Just believe. Put aside the issues we have created against God. Lay down our pride and our self-importance. Just believe that Jesus was who he said he was and that he died for us.

“Shall not perish but HAVE eternal life” – Then for that tiny step of faith we get to live forever in a place of absolute joy where all the negatives of this world are but a distant memory: Heaven.

Simple!

Then why do so many of us resist? Why do so many of us choose to ignore this simple invitation?

Each of us have our reasons (I did). I just hope and pray that your reasons are worth the risk you are taking. What if you ignore God’s invitation your entire life and then you miss the opportunity?

Have a chat to God tonight. Find a bible in your loft and dust it off. Look into this amazing invitation before it is too late.

It’s a decision I made even though it went against my better judgement but I don’t regret that decision for a second.

This was based on a message from Nothpoint Ministries‘ Go Fish! sermon series.

Posted by Adam under Faith | 2 Comments »

Ever since I started to come to Gateway Church Swindon (then it was called Swindon Family Church) over three years ago I have been serving.

Within a few months of attending I was asked if I would lead the projection team and take over the running of the IT requirements as the current tech-master was heading off to New Zealand. I felt like this would be a good thing to do so I said yes.

Over the years I have continued to say yes to things and in the end I was not only leading the projection team and heading up IT I was also in charge of the church website, producing the CDs and creating the podcast of the Sunday morning message (and any other recordings we did), running a monthly film night, fixing any computer problems that people had and leading an Alpha discussion group.

Then about three months ago I was asked I would take on the role of Alpha administrator which would mean taking control of all the things that was needed to be done to get the Alpha course going. I prayed about it for a while and didn’t feel like God was telling me not to do it so I said yes.

Then about two months later my kitchen ceiling started to leak.

Then I cracked.

But God was right there with me. The day before He had brought a bible verse to the mind of a very good friend of mine. They thought it was for me but it didn’t seem to fit. That was until I told them about my leaking ceiling. Here it is…

If a man is lazy, the rafters sag; if his hands are idle, the house leaks. – Ecclesiastes 10:18

At first they thought that I am neither lazy nor is my house leaking so they ignored it but once I told them about my latest house disaster they decided to share it with me.

It really hit me. While to the outside world I was anything but lazy actually I was. I was so busy all the time that I never did the things that really mattered like being a good steward of the things that God has blessed me with like a home and a family.

That weekend I was going to visit my brother and my mum. I had originally planned to quickly pop up for the day as I needed to get back to do the 100 things that needed doing. In the end I stayed for the weekend.

In the pursuit of doing lots for God I have ended up being an incredibly bad witness. My family only ever saw someone who was always busy. How appealing must that have been to them: “Come and know God and say goodbye to your free time!”

It was time for a change.

I met up with one of the elders of my church, told them how I felt and said I needed to give up everything I was doing.

So I am now on a mission to give up everything I am doing by Christmas and then sit back and spend some time with my family, my house and, most importantly, God.

Already my house is clean and tidy and a much nicer place to live in. I feel less stressed and am on the way to having time for people instead of doing things all the time.

God knows what is best for us and while we may think we know what God wants from us (lots of service, to live by rules) actually all God really wants is for us to love and spend time with Him and each other. The more we do stuff the less time we have to do these things that really matter.

Posted by Adam under Faith & Personal | No Comments »

I’ll admit it, I went into this film with preconceived expectations of what I thought it was going to be about. I had viewed the teenage girl fan-base and decided that it was going to be a soppy take on vampire film and was going to miss me completely.

I don’t think I was that wrong!

I haven’t read any of the books (and I don’t think I ever will either) and I get the impression from this film that they are probably a very good series. However, this doesn’t translate well to the big screen. It would have suited at best a TV series or two. It felt more like an over-extended episode of Dawson’s Creek for most of it (or probably One Tree Hill or Orange County for those younger and more hip readers)

The special effects were embarrassing at times. Not because they were bad (I have seen much worse) but more because they were used in such a pointless and distracting way for most of it. Moving at speed and climbing up trees shouldn’t look so lame! And whoever did their makeup needs to find a better job. People don’t look like these people, did no-one ever ask them why they looked so incredibly pale? This was very distracting every time they were on screen until nearer the end where they stopped being pale (?) and started to look normal. Consistency please!!

Kristen Stewart is a star in the making. She has the look of a future Rachel McAdams, Rachel Bilson or Amy Adams. However Robert Pattison never showed the charisma or presence that his character should possess. While I’m sure there are a lot of screaming young girls who would disagree with me, I can’t see him becoming a big star in Hollywood.

On the positive side, it did keep my attention for some of it, especially when the whole family was involved. The bad guys were also quite entertaining although they were far too infrequent.

I’m amazed that they are planning on getting the next one out within a year of this one. I can understand why though: These films will not have the longevity of the Harry Potter series so it is best to milk it for all it is worth before the target audience all have their 15th birthdays!

[6/10]

Posted by Adam under Films | 1 Comment »

I’ve gone a bit API mad today and have started using Live Writer to update this blog and TweetDeck to manage my Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Live Writer

Live Writer is a free tool from Microsoft of all people that I am using to post up this article. So far I am fairly impressed as it cuts down on the clutter that Wordpress has and provides a nice and clean interface for blog authoring. It also means I don’t have to mess about on my site when wanting to publish anything.

I need to give it a little more time to give it a fair trial but I think I would be happy to recommend it to anyone with a blog.

TweetDeck

I finally succumbed to the lure of Twitter today. While I am not sure I fully understand the point of it I am going to give it a fair go. Follow me @AdamWhite1421

I was a little put off though of having to keep both my Twitter status and my Facebook status up to date but then I discovered TweetDeck which allow me to monitor and manage both sites from one application. Nice!

Posted by Adam under Personal & Techy Stuff | 2 Comments »