MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the Kicking the Seat's YouTube Live Talking "North by Northwest"

After months (and maybe years) of souring tastes and more-than-occasional red-assed disdain, Ian Simmons of the Kicking the Seat podcast and YouTube channel found a movie that actually knocked his socks off and entered his pantheon of all-time favorites. The hard part was he had to go back 65 years to a blind spot to find it. Hey, that counts as better late than never. The movie is question and celebration is Alfred Hitchcock’s mistaken identity thriller North by Northwest from 1959. The Cary Grant vehicle drew an assembly of “Earth’s Mightiest Critics” in the form of Ian, myself, Jeff York of The Establishing Shot and Pipeline Artists, Mark Krawczyk of Special Mark Productions, and the KTS on-camera debut of The Last Drive-In’s Joe Randazzo. Enjoy this talkative manhunt flick!

Media Appearance, Podcast, Social Media, SPECIAL, 2020Don ShanahanNovember 24, 2024AMC River East 21Kicking the Seat, Ian Simmons, Mark Krawczyk, Special Mark Productions, David J. Fowlie, Keeping it Reel, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceComment

MEDIA APPEARANCE: Guest on the Kicking the Seat's YouTube Live Talking "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"

Let it be known that Ian Simmons of the Kicking the Seat podcast and YouTube channel is the “ghost with the most” among his assembly of Earth’s Mightiest Critics. He earns that nickname because, unlike many general audiences plopping money down at the box office, Ian would rather ghost screenings for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Watch and listen to Ian, myself, Mark Krawczyk of Special Mark Productions, and David Fowlie of Keeping It Reel go back and forth from the land of living to the dark and murky afterlife to talk about this legacy cycle.

Media Appearance, Podcast, Social Media, SPECIAL, 2020Don ShanahanSeptember 15, 2024AMC River East 21Kicking the Seat, Ian Simmons, Mark Krawczyk, Special Mark Productions, David J. Fowlie, Keeping it Reel, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice BeetlejuiceComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

When it comes to legacy sequels, as we’ve come to call them, interested audiences often pose the question of whether or not enough was enough the first time around? They ponder if a sequel blowing the dust off of old stories and characters is going to beat a dead horse with embarrassment or uncork a finely aged wine. Matching the same hefty 36 years the Top Gun films savored between installments, time has only added to the legend for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice. Generations have now stacked together to enjoy the “Ghost with the Most” to the point where unexpected family feels sweeten and soften the pockmarks of the movie’s gnarly surface.

4 STARS, 2024, MOVIE REVIEWDon ShanahanSeptember 5, 2024Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Tim Burton, Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O'Hara, Jenna Ortega, Justin TherouxComment

MOVIE REVIEW: Spider-Man: Homecoming

Spider-Man: Homecoming counts as a clean slate for Peter Parker’s web-slinger. Now nestled into the established Marvel Cinematic Universe, Tom Holland is a true teenage Spider-Man, one that was never successfully conveyed by two previous franchises and their over-aged actors. Aiming to please and bursting with effervescent zest at every flip, swing, and turn, John Watts’ Spider-Man: Homecoming succeeds as a brand new jumping off point for a character that badly needed course correction.