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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.

Sausage Party (2016)

For the uninitiated, soyrizo is a vegetarian alternative to everyone's favorite spicy Mexican sausage: similar texture, a little bit of kick, and absolutely no animals harmed in the process. Sausage Party is a meatless version of adult comedy, artificially colored with provocative language and seasoned with Seth Rogen’s trademark “smoky” humor. When a suburban supermarket’s anthropomorphic edibles realize that being "chosen" by customers leads not to a heavenly reward but to unspeakable culinary nightmares, our hapless, horny hot dog hero, Frank (Rogen), begins a quest to liberate his fellow foodstuffs. Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat made sex-crazed, foul-mouthed cartoon characters passé half a century ago, and 2004’s Team America: World Police demolished whatever satirical boundaries were left standing. Sausage Party is unfunny and desperate by contrast, especially considering the legion of unpaid animators who worked on this millionaire stoner’s vanity project. So much for harmless fun.

Moana (2016)

Nocturnal Animals (2016)