Jessica Kiang, Author at The Playlist

‘White Noise’ Review: Noah Baumbach Crafts A Callow But Enjoyable Tribute To Pre-Millennial Neurosis [Venice]

September 1, 2022 8:45 am

Man, the 20th century really thought it was something, didn't it? Thankfully, in the middle of the 1980s, just when Western (read: American) culture was fully losing the run of itself in a frenzy of gum-snappi...

‘Fire’: Juliette Binoche & Vincent Lindon Create Sparks But Only Tindersticks Truly Sets Claire Denis’ Love Triangle Alight [Berlin Review]

Jessica Kiang

February 14, 2022 9:07 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Of all the unsolved mysteries in Claire Denis' new Berlin Competition film, the biggest may just be its U.S. retitling to a generic and not particularly representative "Fire." The film's English title in the r...

‘All Is Forgiven’ Review: Mia Hansen-Løve’s Delicate Debut Is More Than Just A Taste Of Things To Come

Jessica Kiang

November 5, 2021 11:57 am

News, Reviews

It's a strangely topsy-turvy experience, to come to a director's first film 14 years, six further features, an Un Certain Regard Special Jury Prize ("Father of my Children"), and a Berlin Silver Bear for Best ...

Ridley Scott’s ‘The Last Duel’: An Enjoyably Ripe Slab Of Historical Hokum That Proves Men Have Been Awful For At Least 7 Centuries [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 10, 2021 3:55 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

In shades of the gunmetal gray that has become the grading palette of choice for Serious Historical Epics — possible because arterial blood spray shows up so nice and red against it —Ridley Scott's starry, sur...

‘Halloween Kills’ …And Kills And Kills, But Sadly Does Not Slay [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 8, 2021 4:00 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Of all the evenings for the Haddonfield Department of Plausible Human Behavior to close early, it's deeply unfortunate that October 31, 2018 had to be one of them. For 'twas on that very night that the events ...

Ana Lily Amirpour’s ‘Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon’ is a Sweet, Scuzzy Blast of Pure Escapism [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 5, 2021 3:45 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Like finding a grubby, balled-up bill in your spangly g-string and uncrumpling it to discover doughy old Ben Franklin staring benignly back at you, Ana Lily Amirpour's third feature is a sweet, scuzzy surprise...

‘Last Night In Soho’ Sees Edgar Wright Running On The Fumes Of Old Enthusiasms [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 4, 2021 4:31 pm

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

Guess it had to happen sometime, but it's a shame that the previously-thought-to-be inexhaustible energy resource of Edgar Wright's omnivorous, giddy cinephilia should finally be showing signs running out righ...

Kristen Stewart Is An Incandescent Diana In Pablo Larraín’s Tremendous ‘Spencer’ [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 3, 2021 10:15 am

Features, Festivals, News, Reviews

If you have even the smallest dislike of the grotesquely redundant and regressive institution that is the British monarchy, one of the greatest pleasures of the shamelessly pleasurable, archly self-aware, high...

‘Parallel Mothers’: Pedro Almodóvar’s Latest Is Bold, Messy, Ridiculous & Brilliant [Venice Review]

Jessica Kiang

September 1, 2021 1:56 pm

Features, News, Reviews

Some opening films merely open their festivals; Pedro Almodóvar's "Parallel Mothers" bursts the Venice Film Festival wide like a piñata that's been crammed with storylines as contrived as its feelings are genu...

Abel Ferrara’s ‘Zeros And Ones’ With Ethan Hawke Is A Flashbulb Pop Of Pandemic-Era Filmmaking & A Fascinating, Ferocious Funsuck [Locarno Review]

Jessica Kiang

August 12, 2021 12:49 pm

Festivals, News, Reviews

Lockdown affected us all in peculiar ways, and given that veteran provocateur Abel Ferrara was pretty damn peculiar to begin with, it's no surprise that "Zeros And Ones" — a fiction that makes use of the non-f...

Author Jessica Kiang