OK, so it’s kind a true — I’m not one for film. I slept through all my film classes in college, but then again, I dare you to stay awake through all eight jillion hours of Warhol’s Empire. These days, my cinema knowledge is limited to the oeuvre of Reese Witherspoon, Apocalypse Now and being able to recite Spaceballs from beginning to end [no, its really true]. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but this film looks AWESOME:

Brothers of The Head
Great Britain | Run time: 90 min. | Director: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe

Temple University alumni Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost in La Mancha) deliver their first fiction film, a mock-rock-documentary about conjoined-twin rock stars in 1960s and 70s London.

After directing two acclaimed feature documentaries on the films of Terry Gilliam (the Philadelphia-lensed 12 Monkeys production chronicle The Hamster Factor, and the widely acclaimed Lost in La Mancha), former Temple University grads Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe have crafted their first fiction feature –- and it’s an astute parody of the media documentaries with which they began their careers. In this case, Brothers of the Head, adapted from the novel by renowned science-fiction writer Brian Aldiss, is a mock-rock-documentary about a fictional pair of conjoined twins who become unlikely rock stars in the London music scene of the 1960s and 70s. Talented, introspective Tom (Harry Treadaway) is joined at the lower torso with his more aggressive, bad-boy twin Barry (Luke Treadaway), and the two are signed in the mid-60s as a novelty rock act by unscrupulous promoters. Initially beginning their careers with Small Faces/Kinks-inspired Brit-rock of the period, the twins eventually begin to channel their anger at their exploitation by embracing the punk scene of the 70s. Their increasingly hostile behavior –- and drug and alcohol abuse — combines with their betrayal at the hands of unscrupulous managers, agents and music journalists to cement their downfall. Fulton and Pepe structure their mock-rock-doc as a collage of contemporary interviews with surviving participants in the phenomenon of “Bang Bang” (the twins’ band name), and effectively recreated “archival” footage of the twins’ performances and behind-the-scenes documentary footage (much of which seems to consciously parody several Rolling Stones documentaries of the era).

– Travis Crawford

Check out the other music-related films here.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 3:27 pm and is filed under general, local.