Max. Mon Amour / Max My Love (1986)

Peter Jones (Anthony Higgins) a British diplomat in France, suspects his wife Margaret (Charlotte Rampling) of having an affair. He hires a private detective, who reports that Margaret has rented an apartment. It then turns out that her live-in lover is a pet chimpanzee she calls Max. A bizarre love triangle comedy in the surreal style of Buñuel. Directed by Nagisa Oshima (In The Realm Of The Senses, Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence), written by Jean-Claude Carrière (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie).

The Sapphire Room

The Sapphire Room from Sean O'Brien on Vimeo.

The famous Les Girls 'All Male Review' in the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross since 1963 was still going strong in the 1990s, headed up by the performer Carlotta. Capitalising on the sudden success of the feature film 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' (Stephan Elliott, 1994), Les Girls went on tour, leaving their night club vacant. Sean O'Brien, and his fellow filmmaker colleague Robert Herbert took advantage of the vacant Sunday night spot at Les Girls (2a Roslyn Street Kings Cross) to run their own fun spot.

Tender Trap was for the emerging scene of easy listening, lounge, cocktail, exotica, and incredibly strange music experiencing an enormous international resurgence in the mid 1990s. With the filmic by-line, 'A celebration of cocktail culture at its most sophisticated and savage', O'Brien and Herbert developed a narrative arc to each evening evening – 'First the cocktails and sophisticated conversation, then the live performance, then the wild dancing shall begin'. The sleaze, gangs and drugs of 1990s Kings Cross were left outside the doors of Tender Trap. Soft, pastel lighting, a very vintage sound system, and hand-made stage designs for the cabaret acts all gave Tender Trap the feeling of an oasis in the centre of the Cross, for those who were seeking it. (I attended several events there, including a performance by Japanese ambient noise legend K.K. Null in 1995). 

After running Tender Trap for eight years, in January 2000 the club had its final night, as the historic Les Girls building was shut down for major renovations, becoming yet another inner-city hotel. 

This film by Sean O'Brien is a  portrait of the twilight world of the Sapphire Room, the last of Sydney’s legendary cabaret nightclubs. The film blends candid footage of local “exotic” cabaret artists with a dramatic plot which follows the characters and actions over one eventful night at the club. It features Johannes K. Drinda, the World's Greatest Whistler, who performed his unusual repertoire outside the Sydney Opera House for many years. Filmed on location at the Tender Trap club, in the Les Girls building, during the mid 1990s.

Writer/Director: Sean O'Brien 

Camera: Simon Von Wolkenstein, Tristan Milani, Sean O'Brien 

Editor and sound design: Nick Meyers 

Cast: Rowan Woods, Sauly Saul, Sasha Madaluno, Ali Higson, and a scintillating line-up of Sydney's cabaret stars.

The Children of the Stones

 

The series follows the adventures of astrophysicist Adam Brake and his teenage son Matthew after they arrive in the small village of Milbury, which is built in the midst of a megalithic stone circle.

Filmed at Avebury, Wiltshire during the hot summer of 1976, with interior scenes filmed at HTV's Bristol studios, it has sinister, discordant wailing voices heightening the tension in the incidental music. The music was composed by Sidney Sager who used the Ambrosian Singers to chant in accordance with the megalithic rituals referred to in the story. Director Peter Graham Scott was surprised on seeing the script that the series was intended for children's airtime due to the complexities of the plot and the disturbing nature of the series.

Cast as the leader of the village, Hendrick, was Iain Cuthbertson, while the leading role of Adam Brake was filled by Gareth Thomas. Cuthbertson and Thomas had previously worked together on the TV series Sutherland's Law. Veronica Strong (the wife of series co-writer Jeremy Burnham)[6] played Margaret Smythe, the curator of the local museum, who partners with Brake to solve the mystery. The child actors Peter Demin (aged 17 at the time of filming) and Katharine Levy played the teenage leads, Matthew (Brake's son) and Sandra (Smythe's daughter). Freddie Jones and John Woodnutt were cast as poacher Dai and butler Link.

Jimi Hendrix (1973)

 

Jimi Hendrix (1973) from Robert Alan (Scoobzy) McDowell on Vimeo.

This documentary was made three years after Jimi Hendrix's untimely death. At the time it was an example of how a visual biography should be done, but some of the information in it needs revising in the light of new information uncovered over the years. The film contains concert footage spanning the Marquee in 1967 to his last UK performance at the third Isle of Wight festival in 1970; along the way we see classic performances at Monterey (1967), Woodstock (1969), Fillmore East (1969/70), and Berkeley (1970). A double album was released to tie-in with the film, containing the complete performances in the film, along with interviews with people in the film (not necessarily the same interviews). The film is worth seeing for Jimi's performances, and to hear what his contemporaries have to say about him (Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, Lou Reed, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend, and others).

Citizen Smith

Citizen Smith is a British television sitcom written by John Sullivan, first broadcast from 1977 to 1980.

It starred Robert Lindsay as Walter Henry "Wolfie" Smith, a young Marxist "urban guerrilla" in Tooting, south London, who is attempting to emulate his hero Che Guevara. Wolfie is a reference to the Irish revolutionary Wolfe Tone, who used the pseudonym "Citizen Smith" in order to evade capture by the British. Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are "Power to the People" and "Freedom for Tooting".

Wolfie dresses in a stereotypical fashion for rebellious students of the period: logoed T-shirt, denim jeans, Afghan coat and black beret. He supports Fulham F. C. and occasionally wears a Fulham scarf. He rides a scooter and spends most of the time at his girlfriend's house, which means he constantly clashes with her parents.

Anchoress (1993)

In the 14th-century, a visionary girl is to become an Anchoress, a walled-in recluse, so that she can live in the Virgin's house forever. Over time she awakens to her own sensuality and explores her own female, earth-based spirituality.

The screenplay is partly based on accounts of an historical female anchorite, Christine Carpenter, who was walled into her anchorhold in a village church in Shere, Surrey, in southern England, in 1329. The story revolves around the girl's mystical visions of the Virgin Mary, the local reeve who wants to marry her, and the priest who walls her into his village church and his dislike of her mother, a midwife whom he regards as a witch.

Vali: The Witch Of Positano (1967)

A psychedelic documentary portrait shot in Positano, Italy in 1965 about Australian artist and occultist Vali Myers.

Punk 76: The Birth of Anarchy

Punk 76: The Birth Of Anarchy (2013) is one of the best docu/films about the Punk Rock explosion circa 76. Too many productions of this type fail to acknowledge and interview many of the big players outside of the usual suspects (Clash/Pistols), but this gets it right.

Outsiders - Freaks - Runts.

Enter a roll call featuring Gene October, Steve Severin, Tony James, Marco Pironi, Viv Albertine, Rat Scabies, Jah Wobble and Charlie Harper. While the literary aspects are covered by luminaries such as Caroline Coon and John Savage.

We are taken through the journey via the fashion side of things - from the safety pin/bondage era - to the leather jackets and the shock tactics involved. The social period is captured, with caustic asides to the music of the time and thus why these punkers felt a change was needed.

"Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers" (Voltaire)

Of course much of the thrill for old punks and prospective newbies, comes with the live clips we get. Always great to see the likes of Chelsea, The Lurkers, Subway Sect and The Adverts get an airing, while there's a lovely bonus that sees The Electric Chairs as well. While naturally the big players are of course featured prominently.

There's something of a hard sell going on as regards The Great Rock "N" Roll Swindle, which annoys since it's awful and full of untruths. While more time could have been afforded the rivalry with the Teddy Boys and the future influences of Punk. But this film gets pretty much most things right.

Because Gene October and the gang here are correct, Punk never went away, you see it every day, coloured hair, piercings and studs were once not the norm, and this film shows how that wave in 76 is still being felt today. 9/10

The Tudor Farm Series

Tudor Monastery Farm is a British factual television series, first broadcast on BBC Two on 13 November 2013. The series, the fifth in the historic farm series, following the original, Tales from the Green Valley, stars archaeologists Peter Ginn and Tom Pinfold, and historian Ruth Goodman. The team discover what farming was like during the Tudor period at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum. The program also recurringly features other historians, such as Colin Richards (an expert on rural crafts), and Professor Ronald Hutton (who specializes in folklore and religious beliefs).

The team move in, coppice hazel, build a pig enclosure, commission a guild, plough using oxen, make rushlights, make wattle-and-daub barriers, sow peas and barley using broadcasting, and celebrate religious festivals. They take custody of some Tamworth pigs. They hire workmen to scribe and illuminate documents as well as turn wooden bowls and plates.

The team work with sheep: driving, milking and shearing them; make cheese from the milk; sort, grade, card and spin wool. Additional they produce a period cold treatment from herbs, steam-bend wood, and celebrate Whitsun. They take custody of geese and drive them to market. They observe the smelting of iron as well as the weaving and fulling of cloth.

The team wean piglets, cultivate wild yeast, malt barley, make ale and bread, harvest honey and beeswax, dip candles, shave their sheep's hooves, demonstrate period hair care methods, roast lamb, and celebrate both a mass and the midsummer festival. They take custody of a boar to service their sows. They observe the shaping, moulding, and pouring of a bell, learn about period clock mechanisms and observe a wind-powered grain mill.

The team mine, smelt and cast ingots of lead; plait eel baskets and harvest eels; shape stained glass; patronize a pub; pasture their piglets in the forest; paint cloth and manage their garden. Tom sits for a camera obscura portrait.

The team launder bed linen, serve as cooks and stewards, calcine and slake lime, build a lime-ash floor, churn, press, and salt butter; sanitize the dairy, plait rushes for floormats, lay and press rag paper; prepare lye from ash; harvest tree hay for the animals; harvest and thresh their pea crop, cook a feast and make brandy. They observe period typesetting, printing and bookbinding.

The team harvest and stook and store their barley; extract salt from brine, celebrate Michaelmas, carve decorative stone, form and decorate floor tiles, produce blackpowder for Roman candle fireworks, a Damson and Bullace Melomel beverage, and perform a mystery play. The Christmas Special On 25 November 2013, the BBC announced that Tudor Monastery Farm would have a Christmas special which explored the festive season as part of BBC Two's Christmas scheduling. The episode was broadcast on 31 December 2013 and overnight figures showed that it attracted 1.57 million viewers (8.06% of the viewing audience). Official figures raised the number of viewers to 1.76 million.

Isabelle Eberhardt (1991)

Isabelle Eberhardt is a 1991 Australian-French biographical drama film directed by Ian Pringle. The film follows the adult life of Isabelle Eberhardt and was filmed in Algiers, Paris and Geneva. It stars Mathilda May as Eberhardt and Peter O'Toole as Hubert Lyautey. It received financial backing from the Film Finance Corporation Australia and was nominated for three awards at the 1991 Australian Film Institute Awards.

Isabelle Eberhardt was screened at the 1991 Melbourne International Film Festival and was also released in cinemas in Australia, though did not have a home media release. The film received generally negative reviews.