After watching The Gathering, you won't think of “Social Justice Warrior” as a pejorative phrase. Micki Dickoff’s rousing documentary short follows members of Witness to Innocence, an activist organization comprised entirely of exonerated death row inmates. And there are a lot of them. An argument-ending amount of people served decades behind bars based on faulty evidence, bogus testimony, and other matters of corruption inherent to or abetted by the American criminal justice system. The occasional soapboxing against crooked attorneys is a bit much, especially without some sort of “Not All Prosecutors” balance. But Dickoff’s decision to let the voiceless speak without interruption serves as cosmic reparations for these horribly betrayed, often lower-class men and women who now devote themselves to ending capital punishment. The Gathering's emotional testimonials flesh out ideas only hinted at by the talking heads in Ava DuVernay’s 13th. This is a call to action. Indeed, to war.
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.