Movie Crush Monday: Little C & Only Lovers Left Alive

Readers, I'm just going to come right out and say it. January of 2016 has been a mean bitch. With the death of Glenn Frey (Founding member of the Eagles) we have lost so many musicians and actors in the last two weeks that I'm no longer surprised when the news comes up. Which brings me in a round about way to my movie crush this week. A film about a musician that has lived for hundreds of years, his long (loooong) time artist lover and her eternal party girl sister. I'm following John Hurt from Snowpiercer to Only Lovers Left Alive.

This movie was a little on the weird side. The idea is that Tom Hiddleston plays Adam, a rocker/vampire who is living in Detroit passing his time by acquiring rare instruments and feeding at a local blood bank. Tilda Swinton plays his girlfriend Eve (because symbolism that's why) who has been living in Morocco but feel compelled to reconnect with Adam. They have some moody but truly outstanding scenes together before Tilda's younger sister shows up and ruins everything. I don't want to give anything else away from the plot, but at the same time the plot is not the biggest reason to watch this movie. 

Tom Hiddleston playing a guitar while shirtless is. Just kidding

Regular readers are probably asking themselves if I'm having some sort of meltdown. I care deeply about plot. It's Christy who watches movies for the feel of them. Have we swapped brains? Up is down, cats and dogs are getting along. Let me clarify. This movie has plenty of story and characters to it. You can watch the movie just for the story and be perfectly satisfied. It's just that the story and the mood of it and the soundtrack and the lighting and the losations all blend so perfectly under Jim Jarmusch's direction that this feels like a movie where the story is in place only as a building block. 

I also want to take a moment to mention a truly wonderful character, played by my link to this movie, John Hurt. Worked into the mythology of the vampire world of the film is the fact that Christopher Marlowe (played by Mr. Hurt) is not only still alive and writing, but that he wrote all of the work attributed to Shakespeare. Which leads to a moment where Tilda Swinton reads sonnet 116. I could be found, during that scene, in a Caitlin sized puddle on the floor of the theater having happily melted as I reached peak literature nerdiness. 

So as we continue to slog through a month filled with the loss of art, I will be spending at least a few hours indulging in a fantasy where true artists never really die. 

Happy watching,

Little C