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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.

Killing Gunther (2017)

The found-footage aesthetic died years ago, but no one told Killing Gunther, which shambles about in a slobbering, unholy imitation of life that should be put down for everyone’s safety. I say this not out of spite, but disappointment. I can’t recall another found-footage action comedy, and it’s a shame that writer/director/star Taran Killam couldn’t drag his unique premise across the finish line: Killam plays Blake, an assassin who forms a team of misfit colleagues to take out Gunther (Arnold Schwarzenegger), the world’s greatest hit man. The total outright laughs could fit into an SNL Digital Short—fitting, considering how much of the cast have appeared on that show. At an hour-and-a-half (ten percent of which actually features Schwarzenegger, who pulls a Blade Runner 2049 on us), the movie feels at once too cartoonish and too sincere. It’s like watching Wile E. Coyote in therapy, with an occasional Road Runner sighting.

Tokyo Vampire Hotel (2017)

Professor Marston and the Wonder Women (2017)