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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.

The Devil's Candy (2017)

You know the story: five minutes after an unsuspecting family moves into a murder house, the loving father/husband becomes obsessed and possessed by a corrupting supernatural force. In The Devil’s Candy, heavy metal music is the culprit, and struggling artist Jesse Hellman (Ethan Embry) can’t shake the melodic, garbled chants pulsing through his brain. Before you can say, “All work and no play…” Jesse has lost hours to painting nightmarish tapestries of burning children and goat-faced monsters. What's the connection to the home’s disturbed former owner (Pruitt Taylor Vince), a mumbling metal-head who keeps coming around? Writer/director Sean Byrne bobs and weaves past convention to provide some complicated answers. And thanks to standout performances by Embry and star-in-the-making Kiara Glasco (playing Jesse’s teen daughter, Zooey), the film achieves a note-perfect blend of tenderness and terror. Like metal itself, The Devil’s Candy is an angry, sometimes off-putting expression of soulful sincerity. 

Serial Mom (1994)

Halfway (2016)