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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.

Swing Away (2017)

It’s a rotten thing when personal prejudice gets in the way of a fine movie-watching experience. But here I am, confessing to mild disappointment in Michael A. Nickles’ Swing Away. The film stars Shannon Elizabeth as Zoe, a professional golfer who retreats to her grandparents’ idyllic home in Greece, following an on-camera meltdown that led to her suspension from a big tour. She mentors a local girl in the ways of the green, and rallies the town to wrest control of a dilapidated golf course from a heartless developer (played with downright Presidential oafishness by John O’Hurley). Swing Away is a picturesque, unabashed love letter to Greece; to women in sports; and to bread-making (Zoe’s grandfather kneads out a tactile, touching life lesson). Unfortunately, it’s also about golf, and I found the climactic twenty-five minute tournament devoid of the first hour’s lightness, romance, and purpose. Your mileage may vary.

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

Moscow Never Sleeps (2017)