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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.

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Ridley Scott is the Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Hollywood. Instead of serving those who ostensibly made him powerful, he placed his finger on the scale of Fox's Alien franchise, scuttling (or abetting the scuttling of) Neill Blomkamp's proposed fourth sequel--in order to promote his own wretched and increasingly nonsensical prequel series. Alien: Covenant starts off strong, fleshing out just enough of Prometheus' half-cooked creation themes to downplay the fact that we're watching yet another crew of deep-space dead-meats respond to another beacon on another uncharted, monster-infested planet. Before you can say "I'll be right back", Covenant devolves into the kind of dumb, predictable, and wholly disposable dreck, which, when taken chronologically as part of a larger story, is guaranteed to sour future viewers on further xenomorph exploits before they even get to Alien. We may never know if Blomkamp's vision would have been better. It could not have been worse.

Listen to Kicking the Seat Podcast #225 to hear Ian and Keeping it Reel's David Fowlie scream (or at least complain) about Alien: Covenant!

Wonder Woman (2017)

A Quiet Passion (2017)