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Welcome to Kicking the Seat!

Ian Simmons launched Kicking the Seat in 2009, one week after seeing Nora Ephron’s Julie & Julia. His wife proposed blogging as a healthier outlet for his anger than red-faced, twenty-minute tirades (Ian is no longer allowed to drive home from the movies).

The Kicking the Seat Podcast followed three years later and, despite its “undiscovered gem” status, Ian thoroughly enjoys hosting film critic discussions, creating themed shows, and interviewing such luminaries as Gaspar Noé, Rachel Brosnahan, Amy Seimetz, and Richard Dreyfuss.

Ian is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association. He also has a family, a day job, and conflicted feelings about referring to himself in the third person.

Ep238: 2001: A Millennial Odyssey

Ian Simmons

Today, the Kicking the Seat Podcast touches the monolith with Cole Rush of Cole Tries New Things! Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey is an undeniably important film, but does the forty-nine-year-old classic transcend the generational divide between Gen-X and Millennial? And does this divide really even exist in the context of movies?

Ian and Cole recount their experience of seeing a new print of A Space Odyssey at the Music Box Theatre's 70MM Film Festival (which runs now through July 15th), and first-timer Cole helps elaborate on some decades-old mysteries that repeat viewer Ian still grapples with.

Also, Ian revisits a Chicago Reader piece he wrote last year, and offers a kinda/sorta mea culpa.

The joke's on you: Episode 238 can read lips!

Ep239: The After Laff

Ep237: Web or Grill?