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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.

Bad Moms (2016)

Bad Moms is a gender-swapped, mostly successful clone of Todd Phillips' Old School": Mila Kunis plays the Responsible Mom, who's just kicked out her cyber-cheating, man-child husband; Kathryn Hahn plays the Wild Mom who sips, snorts, and sleeps with anything that moves; Kristen Bell plays the Repressed Mom who's secretly even more unhinged than Wild Mom. Christina Applegate's Evil PTA Queen doesn't approve of the trio's "Hey, whatever" approach to raising their kids, and the Ove Gloves come off in a fierce war of pranks, reprisals, and public speeches about the joys/horrors of parenting. Co-writers/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore provide more heart, laughs, and visual flair than you might expect, but the tin-eared screenplay depicts every man on screen as absentee, airheaded, or abusive (except for Responsible Mom's hunky new love interest, of course). When Todd freaking Phillips claims the high ground in Objectification Valley, you know things are...bad.

Arrival (2016)

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)