What are your top ten favorite movies?
When it comes to films, I enjoy those that give me an escape from the diet of bad news that seems to be everywhere at the moment. I also enjoy the films that take me back to being a child again. I decided to think of this as a desert island challenge. If I was on my own on a desert island, which films could I rewatch time after time? You won’t find any crime stories, although you will find a couple of scary films that give me a change of pace and subject matter. They are in date order to make the list easier to work with. For each film I will include a very brief synopsis and the reason why I have chosen it. By the way, if you asked me again in a week’s time the list could vary but I think at least half of them are set in stone.
My Ten Desert Island Discs
- Dead of Night (1945) This incredible portmanteau horror film is the story of Walter Craig, an architect who arrives at a cottage in Kent. Upon entering a room with a collection of people he tells them that he has seen them all before in a dream. The film uses this as the framing for five stories of the supernatural, my favourite of which is the first one. Walter Craig is played by my favourite ‘obscure’ actor Mervyn Johns, father of Glynis, who was perhaps one of the finest character actors ever. His performances in Went The Day Well, Day of the Triffids and as Bob Cratchit in Scrooge are all worth watching.
- The Bishop’s Wife (1947) A brilliant Christmas fantasy with a star powered central pairing of David Niven as Bishop Henry Brougham and Cary Grant as the Angel Dudley. For more details see my post here It is a Christmas classic that I think is better than It’s A Wonderful Life!
- The Sound of Music (1965) The classic musical with every song a winner and a practically perfect central performance by Julie Andrews. I have always loved watching it and will do so again before our trip to Salzburg in November where I want to see as many of the original locations as possible. Edelweiss is my favourite song from any musical.
- The Aristocats (1970) I had to have a classic Disney and this is the one I have chosen. A film I remember seeing at the cinema and listening to songs from on one of my favourite albums It is perhaps the epitome of the 60s output and despite certain elements that may not have aged well, it’s an absolute joy.
- Melody (1971) This is a film I am completely evangelical about. It is the most perfect evocation of first love ever put on screen and was a huge influence on many film makers. Wes Anderson has said that Moonrise Kingdom is based on Melody. Mark Lester is typically appealing, Jack Wild is typically cheeky, but debutante Tracy Hyde just steals the film in her role as Melody Perkins. The London setting is absolutely fantastic as a social and historical time capsule. The Bee Gees soundtrack is brilliant and features one of my all time favourite songs, First of May. Find it, see it and thank me for the recommendation afterwards!
- Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971) A classic family film with a brilliant central performance from Gene Wilder and a factory built of Pure Imagination. However, for my younger self, my love for this film stemmed from the character Veruca Salt. This selfish, greedy, controlling character was played by the lovely Julie Dawn Cole, who I had a huge crush on from the moment I saw her. Over 50 years after the film I finally got to meet my boyhood crush and she was even lovelier than I could have imagined.
- The Wicker Man (1973) This is probably the greatest British horror film ever made. With Christopher Lee at his hypnotic best and Edward Woodward matching him with acerbic asides and moral certainty, this was never going to be a bad film. However, it’s the ending that makes it one of the best films of the era. I won’t spoil it of course, but I had real trouble sleeping the night I first saw it.
- A Christmas Carol (1984) I have to take a version of Ebenezer Scrooge to the island and the central performance that comes closest to the book is in this film. American great George C Scott gives Scrooge a reality that he has never otherwise had on film, or arguably in the book. The flesh and blood businessman could come from any time up to and including ours. He is not as horrible at the start and less unhinged at the end. All in all, a perfect portrayal.
- Love Actually (2003) My favourite film, one I have seen every year since 2004 and can remember whole sections of. It’s appeal has never dimmed and it has become part of our family Christmas. Rather like the Dickens’ Christmas Festival, it can’t be Christmas unless we have seen this film. My favourite story is the gorgeous first love of Sam for the apparently unattainable Joanna. I don’t care whether it’s divisive, I will watch it every Christmas and love it every Christmas, actually!
- Inside Out (2015) Pixar’s finest film in my opinion. The way that the emotions are portrayed inside Riley’s head and the effect they have on her behaviour towards herself and others, is presented with real heart and subtlety. It is the perfect family film, appealing to adults, teenagers and children in very different ways, and I will always find myself becoming emotional at the end.
What do you enjoy most about writing?
When I restarted this blog I think I wanted to use it for myself as a kind of diary. Obviously I wanted to bring my ideas and opinions to a more public realm, but I have to admit that I didn’t really expect to get a lot of attention. That expectation proved correct in a comparative sense given the relatively small readership I have, but in another sense I was incorrect. Some of my posts have encouraged comments and some have been shared in different places on the Internet, and my readers come from around the world. That has changed my writing style when I look at the blog posts over the years.
I have made more effort to engage and to challenge. I have taken much longer to craft some of my posts. I have started to consider what gets a lot of reaction (in comparative terms) and what gets overlooked. Now, I don’t think the posts that get overlooked are worse than the posts that get lots of attention, but I can see why that is the case. I think that when I let a bit more of myself into a post, it connects better with the audience and is, in a sense, easier to write. The daily prompt has really encouraged me to be more immediate in my writing and I think that has helped.
I have found blogging to be a good way of destressing even if I have occasionally got frustrated with a post that hasn’t quite hit the mark! I have enjoyed the interaction increasing almost exponentially since I started with the daily prompt, because at heart I want to reach people. That is why I became a teacher, why I wrote and self published a couple of not very well received books over a decade ago, and why I started writing about music online. I am not the best person at communicating in real life but it’s something I am getting better at doing online.
Thank you to everyone reading this and any other posts for letting me communicate with you. If you ever want to communicate with me I love the dopamine hit of a comment so please feel free to put one at the bottom of any of my 250 previous posts!
What do you love about where you live?
Where I live is just 15 minutes away from Rochester in Kent. For any lovers of the works of Charles Dickens, it is a must visit. The shops of the old High Street are obviously different from what the great author would have been used to, but there are still some similarities in the fact that the buildings have largely survived from those days. The Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel is over 400 years old and looks little different on the outside from the time when Dickens stayed there. It was featured in the Pickwick Papers and Great Expectations. Just off of the High Street is Restoration House, the model for Satis House in Great Expectations. Dickens would also have been very familiar with the magnificent Rochester Cathedral which features in Pickwick Papers and his final unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.
All of this history is a huge draw for tourists and locals alike, but the high point of the entire year for me is the Dickens Christmas Festival which I wrote about in the linked article back in 2022. It is scheduled to take place on the first weekend of December, whenever that is (December 6 – 7 in 2025), and I fervently hope it goes ahead as it was cancelled in 2020 due to Covid and again in 2024 due to adverse weather conditions which never materialised, and it was a massive loss to my Christmas build up each time. For me, that weekend is the start of my festive season, and if you are anywhere near Rochester on the first weekend of December this or any other year it is an absolute treat. Singing Christmas songs with the Cathedral behind you and Rochester Castle in front of you is just seasonal magic. I will be there on the Sunday and I would recommend it to anyone nearby who loves Christmas.
A Landmark Post
This is my 250th post since I restarted this blog. It was mothballed in 2011 after 6 posts where I tried, very unsuccessfully as it turn out, to publicise a book I had written and self published. I restarted it in 2021 and I have been slowly building it up ever since. A few of my posts have achieved some good numbers with Memories of Singing Together from 2023 having over 800 views, but others are stuck on two or three. David Pearce – Popular Culture and Personal Passions 2023 Highlights and Hidden Gems was written at the end of 2023 to give a push to some of my blogs from that year. Maybe I should try this again. What do you think? Although the figures will have changed the quality of the blogs haven’t so I’d love a few more reads on these posts.
What positive emotion do you feel most often?
The positive emotion I feel most often is that of pride. I have never understood why it is supposed to be a sin, whatever form it takes. I think it’s perhaps something of the hairshirt tendency of certain early religions where everything was to do with God because everything was pre-ordained. Anyway, my pride tends to be in other people’s achievements, especially where I have had a certain input.
As a teacher it is really nice to see your former students doing well. For 5 years I was teaching English to prospective Doctors at St George’s University. After that I taught students from a number of different disciplines. I follow a number of them on Instagram and they have, without exception, done incredibly well in their careers in the years since I taught them. One of my real pleasures is seeing their progress as they do so much good in their different fields. Some of them are kind enough to attribute a small measure of their success to my teaching. I definitely helped in the early days as they were getting to grips with Academic English and Academic life in general. Although I know that their success is almost entirely down to their hard work since those days, I feel proud that they have taken some of my influence into the world and worked with it.
The same goes for my children. Their successes and difficulties are theirs but I hope that the influence of myself and my wife has given them a very strong base from which to launch themselves into the world. Every one of them has given me a great feeling of pride at various times over the years and it is one of the real joys of parenthood for me. They still want to come to concerts with me which means so much as I never take it for granted. My daughters and I are going to My Chemical Romance at Wembley Stadium next July and I know it’s going to be an incredible experience.
Very occasionally I allow myself a small measure of pride in myself. I feel that some of my blog posts are as good as anything you will read anywhere. The fact that people read, like and respond in the comments gives me a huge lift, especially the latter, because it tells me that I have struck a chord.
So there you have it. Pride is not a sin to me, deadly or otherwise. It’s one of the most positive emotions you can feel in other people’s achievements.
How do you plan your goals?
I have never really bought into the idea of visualisation. You can’t visualise yourself into success unless you have the circumstances that allow you to succeed, whatever they might be. When I think of my goals they tend to be reactive not proactive. It’s about making the best of what life throws at you. People who don’t reach their goals aren’t, in general, less committed to them, they are less fortunate with the combination of personal qualities and opportunities required. You can have the former but you must have the latter. We have seen so many examples of poor quality people reaching the top to pretty much confirm this, especially in global politics.
So, is there any point in setting goals? Well the phrase God laughs at man’s plans indicates not! However, the verse this is derived from is less clear cut. Proverbs 16:9 says ‘A man’s heart plans his course but the Lord determines his steps.’ If you don’t believe in a higher power you can replace Lord with universe or fate, but the message is the same. We can set our goals to give ourselves direction, but we have to accept what eventually transpires. The most important goals in my life have tended to be reactions to the situations I found myself in. That doesn’t make them any less important, and it makes them more realistic. As a child my goal was to be a sports writer and I ended up writing reports for my son’s baseball team for a season and my daughter’s junior football team for seven years. I didn’t get paid but I took the chance to achieve my goals in a way that meant so much more to me.
I have set myself goals for the next stage of my life after deciding to give up full time year round teaching for a very good reason. I am still determined to do well in whatever form that takes and the focus I have given myself has put me in the right frame of mind to keep growing and learning. Do I expect to achieve everything on my list? No. Will I add to my list with a clear expectation of reaching those goals? Of course! To do anything else would be to live an aimless life, but I fully accept that what transpires may be very different from what is planned.
Good luck with your goals but remember the pleasure lies in aiming for the target even if you don’t hit it.
David Pearce - Popular Culture and Personal Passions 