Rock of Aging: Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
The unholy children of the night don't know how you kids listen to that racket.
I thought Only Lovers Left Alive was brilliant, the first time I watched it, and almost unbearably silly, the second time. What’s happened between then and now is that I’ve gotten older, or just more comfortable at the thought of growing old.
The first time I watched Lovers, I was living in Queens, with a boyfriend who was not yet my husband. I had just turned thirty, and I was very self-conscious about turning thirty, and I was also angry about “poptimism,” the idea espoused by critics of my generation that it was more impressive to produce something popular and profitable, something with carefully calibrated and intentional mass appeal, than it was to just follow your own aesthetic inclinations and risk making something niche.