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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 NoéRachel BrosnahanAmy 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.

Ep294: Drinking Baby Tears and Throwing Up

Today, the Kicking the Seat Podcast and F This Movie!'s Patrick Bromley explore the further reaches of experience with a look at 1988's Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 and last week's Hellraiser: Judgment! How do these sequels stack up to one of the most innovative horror movies ever made? What is it about Clive Barker's  macabre universe of lust, betrayal, and puzzle-solving demons that resonates more than thirty years after its release? And which is scarier: facing down the high priest of Hell, or combating Skype and a shoddy audio cable?

You'll be downright terrified by the answer.

Also, Ian reminds you to catch the last talent-packed Q&A with the cast and crew of Michael Glover Smith's Mercury in Retrograde! Come on out to the Gene Siskel Film Center tomorrow night to see Ian moderate a conversation between the audience and writer/director Smith; producer/star Shane Simmons; star Jack C. Newell; editor Frank V. Ross; and producer Kevin W. Wright!

Mercury has received some highly deserved buzz in the last week (thanks in large part to Richard Roeper's wonderful review), so get your tickets before they sell out!

Note: Due to circumstances (mostly) beyond anyone's control, this episode is posting a day late--so any references in the show to things happening "tonight" actually happened last night, and "Wednesday" is tomorrow!

Episode 294: You opened it. We came.

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Ep295: BLACK PANTHER Party

Ep293: The Paraquel PARADOX