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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.

Ep824: IndieSeen: BREATHLESS (1960)

Ep824: IndieSeen: BREATHLESS (1960)

Ian Simmons

Prompted by the recent death of Jean-Luc Godard, Ian and Sujewa review the filmmaking pioneer's first feature-length work, 1960's Breathless!

Michel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a hustler living in late-1950s Paris. He schemes, steals, and beds his way through life until a truly desperate situation places him at the center of a city-wide manhunt. Despite all this, he finds time to court Patricia (Jean Seberg), an American journalism student who's attracted to Michel's freewheeling nihilism.

In this spoiler-filled discussion, the guys look at Breathless as a breakthrough in cinematic language, and the surprising clunkiness that comes from doing something first. They also talk about Godard's use of film as a vehicle for political and pop critique (he began his career in the movies as a film critic), and how Michel and Patricia influenced unconventional outlaw stories for decades to come.

Show Links:

Ep825: There's No Stalgia Like Nostalgia: BATTLE OF THE WORLDS (1961)

Ep825: There's No Stalgia Like Nostalgia: BATTLE OF THE WORLDS (1961)
Ep823: 3 Questions with RRR Director S.S. RAJAMOULI!

Ep823: 3 Questions with RRR Director S.S. RAJAMOULI!