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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.

AVP: Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Unlike Alien: Resurrection, I never understood the vitriol aimed at Alien vs Predator. Writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson’s script borrows elements from Dark Horse Comics’ 1991 miniseries, while providing a near-perfect distillation of the Alien and Predator film franchises: when several scientists contract with a tech billionaire to explore heat signatures beneath Antarctica, they stumble upon a predator hunting ritual and become host to the toothy, slimy xenomorphs. It’s easy to beat up on Anderson, the new-millennium poster child for disposable, PG-13 actioners, but AVP’s production design and pocket-universe mythos ease the frustration of predictable developments, professional-wrestling-style fight scenes, and dead-meat characters. I don’t usually advocate the middle ground, but I’ll make an exception for this particular mash-up: push the crowd-pleasing gore too far and you get AVP’s unwatchable sequel, Requiem. Impose self-seriousness on these monster movies, and you get the tedious (and, truth be told, equally bone-headed) Alien prequel, Prometheus.

A Quiet Passion (2017)

Alien: Resurrection (1997)