Brothers Of The Head

[Yithian]

Brothers of the Head

I've just got back from seeing this as the middle feature in a great treble bill (dubbed 'Midnight Obsession') at the Jeonju Film festival. It's really quite interesting and somewhat dark. Fortean associations abound.

Overview

A fake documentary based on a novella by British Sci-Fi writer Brian Aldiss. Siamese twins, Tom and Barry Howe are taken away from their family and sold off to an entertainment company to form a rock-and-roll band‘ The Bang Bang.’It is a film that
shows the brilliance of Fulton and Pepe who made Lost in La Mancha, the making of Terry Gilliam’s called-off project Don Quixote

http://eng.jiff.or.kr/program/film_eng.php?no=143

A few cameos, not least Ken Russell and Jonathan Pryce. Part funded by Film Four and based on Aldiss. It, frankly, sounds silly but the fake documentary allows them to evoke the common sci-fi theme of multiple interpretations and multiple realities (and hence none?) pretty damned well. I have frankly no idea what the average Korean made of it: the subtitles were sparce and even some of the Americans I was with were struggling with the regional accents. Still, I had a great time.

Incidentally, the film before was 20 Centimetres,which really was surprisingly fun for a semi-musical film about the troubles of a Spanish transexual narcoleptic prostitute who lives with a dwarf (No, you read that right!).

Great night: W10,000 (£6), for all three moves from 12-6am with free food and caffeine at 2am, and free snacks at 4am!

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Incidentally, the film before was 20 Centimetres, which really was surprisingly fun for a semi-musical film about the troubles of a Spanish transexual narcoleptic prostitute who lives with a dwarf (No, you read that right!).

My only quibble would be why you thought it was surpising it was fun - it'd have to try hard not to be with that kind of plot!!!

Sounds like a good night out.

 

[Yithian]

Incidently, the film before was 20 Centimetres which really was surprisingly fun for a semi-musical film about the troubles of a Spanish transexual narcoleptic prostitute who lives with a dwarf. (No, you read that right!)

My only quibble would be why you thought it was surpising it was fun - it'd have to try hard not to be with that kind of plot!!!

Sounds like a good night out.

The synopsis blurb I read beforehand made it sound more like an 'issues' film, which i wasn't in the mood for. This couldn't have been further from the truth.

 

[MrRING]

This looks like a fun film!

IMDB

In the 1970s a music promoter plucks Siamese twins from obscurity and grooms them into a freakish rock'n'roll act. A dark tale of sex, strangeness and rock music.

Official Site

 

[Yithian]

As posted elsewhere, I saw this at the 2006 Jeonju International Film Festival. It was most enjoyable. It's actually a spoof documentary - very well done - based on a Brian Aldiss story.

 

[GNC]

I think it's just won the best British film award at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

 

[Timble2]

It's years since I read the Brian Aldiss novel that it's based on, must try and catch it. IIRC the novel was very weird.

 

[Mighty_Emperor]

Threads merged.

Out on DVD at the start of next year:

Brothers of the Head in January

Tartan Video have announced the UK DVD release of Brothers of the Head for 22nd January 2007 priced at £19.99. Back in the 1970s, punk band Bang Bang, led by Barry and Tom Howe, were the new sensation. Not only were they brothers, but they were also conjoined twins. This accident of birth led their father to sign them up with a dodgy music promoter, who was more interested in exploiting their freakish nature rather than their musical talent. As the innocent teenagers got their first taste of fame, fuelled by the lure of sex and drugs and rock and roll, the growing pains of never being able to live separate lives propelled them towards traumatic, tragic consequences.

Directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe (Lost In La Mancha) create a faux-documentary which aims to recreate an authentic feel for the period, as well as adapt the documentary standards of flashbacks, behind-the-scenes footage, as well as contemporary interviews with some of the still-living ‘characters’ involved in their career.

Features include:

• * Anamorphic Widescreen Presentation
  * DD2.0, DD5.1 & DTS 5.1 Surround
  * Tartan exclusive interviews with directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe;
  * Making of Documentary

www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=63120

 

[ramonmercado]

Brian Aldiss: pioneer of British sci-fi
AHEAD OF HIS TIME: BRIAN ALDISS’S NOVELS SEEM ODDLY PROPHETIC CREDIT: JOHN LAWRENCE
Jake Kerridge
7 AUGUST 2015 • 1:56PM

Brian Aldiss, one of the pioneers of British science fiction, has written or edited more than 100 books. He has met Dylan Thomas, John Masefield and T S Eliot, been a drinking buddy of Kingsley Amis (“Kingsley would land one in a lot of trouble, I have to say”), and shared a Jacuzzi with Doris Lessing. He spent years enduring the caprices of Stanley Kubrick as they worked on a screenplay of Aldiss’s story “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”, a project that eventually became Steven Spielberg’s A.I. – “a lousy film,” he says.

It has been a long and full life, then, and most of it is encompassed in an outsized German safe in the kitchen of his home in Oxford. Creaking a little at the age of 89 years and 11 months, Aldiss leans down to open the safe door and reveal a stack of red hardback notebooks: the 81 volumes of his journal.

“For my forthcoming birthday I’m giving a party here and I am determined to put these bloody things on display because nobody’s ever seen them,” he says. “Alison, that’s the lady friend, has had a look, but nobody else has. I don’t. They’re going to the Bodleian when I die, they can’t wait.” ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/brian-aldiss-pioneer-of-british-sci-fi-interview/