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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.

Ep528: Scuola Argento: Talon Show

Today, The Kicking the Seat Podcast reopens "Scuola Argento" as Ian and fellow students Aaron Christensen of Horror 101 with Dr. A.C. and Bryan Martinez of the Facebook video series The Giallo Room talk about the film that started it all: 1970's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage!

Dario Argento's audacious debut finds an American writer running from a mysterious killer in Italy after witnessing a gruesome attack. While Ian appreciates the movie's stylistic seeds (which would grow into the stuff of legend over the next half-century), he wonders if the maestro's opening salvo is all it's cracked up to be. Bryan and Aaron do their best to talk some sense into him in this fun and wide-ranging chat that brings the rest of "Scuola Argento" full circle!

Episode 528 is flocking awesome!

Show Guide:

Intro Music: 0:00 - 0:14

Intro: 0:14 - 2:50

The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Trailer: 2:50 - 5:36

The Bird with the Crystal PlumageDiscussion: 5:36 - 1:16:15

Outro Music: 1:16:15 - 1:16:31

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Ep529: Addition and EXTRACTION

Ep527: Reelpolitik: The More Things Change