Why Does It Exist?

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Podcast #8: Blood Out (2011)

In Podcasts on January 22, 2012 at 9:27 pm

What I like about 50 Cent's acting is his ability to never inhabit roles in any way.

It was bound to happen again. After their dynamite-ish pairing in the first-ever Why Does It Exist? text review, 50 Cent an Val Kilmer once again renew their fated, symbiotic relationship in Blood Out. Except that they don’t actually appear together in this movie, and their combined screen time is roughly eight minutes. Instead, Blood Out is a surprisingly not-terrible movie about a dude from a boy band running around Shreveport ‘thuggin’ and punching other dudes in the head. WDIE fan favorite Vinnie Jones is a British guy that’s so scary, he’s hardly anywhere to be found (as usual) and Annalyne McCord from the 90210 reboot gets naked. A good time was had by all. Blood out.

This episode features a dangerous amount of vocal stylings by Alex but no construction of bike racks. Some would say this is in fact worse.

iTunes

Direct download

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Podfeed

Music this week is provided by bluegrass wunderkinds Bum Tickins. You can find them here and download their album here and here.

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Podcast #7: Lucky Lady (1975)

In Podcasts on January 15, 2012 at 3:29 pm

The good, the bad, the ugly.

The history of cinema is littered with memorable love triangles: Jules, Jim and Catherine. Bella, Edward and Jacob. Benjamin, Elaine and Mrs. Robinson. Nowhere on any list of that type will you find the weirdo triangle/polyamorous team of Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds and Liza Minelli in Lucky Lady. The unfortunate collision of 1970s libertine spirit and 1930s screwball nonsense, Stanley Donen’s much-maligned 1975 flop Lucky Lady finds no fans in Dan and Alex.

This episode includes but is not limited to:

– Actual semi-coherent discussion of film history

– Actual semi-disturbing discussion of threesomes involving Dan and Alex

– Why we hate organizing things and being in charge of things

– Juliette Lewis

– Dan’s roommates building a bike rack for several hours

iTunes

RSS Feed

Direct download

Podfeed

Music this week provided by Reversing Falls. The song ‘Is This Thing On?’ off their upcoming LP can be found here. Reversing Falls will be opening for Real Estate on January 18th at La Sala Rossa in Montreal – info here.

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Podcast #6: Catch the Heat (1987)

In Podcasts on January 8, 2012 at 7:38 pm

This is simultaneously an extremely accurate and extremely misleading image to encapsulate Catch the Heat.

This came very close to being the best episode you’ve never heard. Ostensibly humbled by the academic tone of our discussion, Dan’s computer decided to commit seppuku soon after we recorded the episode. Thankfully, we were able to salvage the files and bring you an enlightening discussion of Catch the Heat, a 1987 actioner that reunites Stirling Siliphant (Village of the Damned, Poseidon Adventure) with his fellow In the Heat of the Night Oscar winner, Rod Steiger.

Steiger lethargically shuffles through his role as a talent agent/drug dealer who has found a rather unique way of smuggling Argentinian heroin into the United States. Unfortunately for him (and us), supervixen cop Checkers Goldberg (!) is on the case.

iTunes

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Direct download

Podfeed

Music for this week’s episode is provided by the City Streets. Their new EP, Decline of the West, is available for free download HERE. The City Streets will be performing Neil Young’s ‘Tonight’s the Night’ in its entirety on January 10th at Casa del Popolo – more info HERE.

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Podcast #5: Arena

In Podcasts on December 31, 2011 at 5:58 pm

"Samuel L. Jackson makes the single-worst choices! Why would anyone want to be in Arena?" - Someone who doesn't get it

Every couple of years, a movie is made wherein the power of the Internet is harvested for nefarious means and gladiatorial combat. 2011’s entry is Arena, a straight-to-DVD effort that pairs Twilight beefcake Kellan Lutz with Formula 51’s Samuel L. Jackson. It is a movie that promises very little and delivers exactly that, while also wasting the talents of supporting players James Remar and Dan’s main squeeze, Degrassi alumni Nina Dobrev. To my knowledge, though, it is the only movie in which Jackson makes out with a pair of nubile Asian twins.

iTunes

RSS feed

Direct download

Podfeed (direct streaming! even easier than anything else!)

This week’s song is Black Country by psychedelic-lunatic-pop-tribal-stoner-punk-fusion-surf-wave duo Tonstartssbandht off their 2009 opus An When. Thanks to the guys and Arbutus Records for letting us use the song! You can catch them at South by Southwest in March. They have no other dates planned so far, but I wouldn’t worry. These guys have toured Georgia (the country), for fuck’s sake.

Podcast #4: A Smoky Mountain Christmas

In Podcasts on December 22, 2011 at 11:44 pm

Despite the fact this movie has a pyjama-clad John Ritter and an evil witch named Jezebel, most of it plays out like this.

Amidst all this talk of banning the word Christmas, last-minute shopping frenzies and desperately trying to find your ‘fat pants’, we at Why Does It Exist? are proud to bring you a moment of respite. Allow yourselves to be lulled to the sweet sound of our Christmas special, an in-depth discussion of the trailblazing Dolly Parton vehicle A Smoky Mountain Christmas. Co-starring Lee Majors as the world’s cleanest hermit and directed by none other than The Fonz, it’s the heartwarming tale of how Dolly Parton is so awesome at everything that her life ends up sucking because of it.

Hear as we marvel at the levels of trickery that make it possible for Dolly Parton to play a guitar with her talon-like fingernails! Weep uncontrollably as we outline the troubling life stories of the amorphous blob of orphans she may or may not end up adopting! Hoot in ecstasy at the appearance of deus ex Ritter! Squeal with delight at the surprise cameo appearance by platinum-selling pop architects The Jingle Cats! Explode with rage as Alex fails to identify Gremlins as the best Christmas movie of all time!
PS: You may notice that Dan’s roommates are partying rather hard in the background. A regular podcast would have relocated or even rescheduled, but our dedication means we power through even the most raging of parties to watch Dolly Parton movies in the most reverent silence.

Music for this episode provided by Chix ‘N Dix. You can find them online here or here or see them play a show almost every week, it seems. There’s a reason why I’m about to refer to them as the hardest-working punk rock band in Montreal.

Pick your poison:
See you all next week and remember, if you like our podcast, rating and writing a review on iTunes helps us get more exposure and highly increases your chances of obtaining oral sex from one of the hosts!

Podcast #3: Loose Cannons

In Podcasts on December 15, 2011 at 10:05 am

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar? DOM stole the cookie from the cookie jar!

Buddy cop movies are the comfort food of the movie world: they’re always the same and that’s what we want from them. We want to see the same dumb jokes, shit blowing up and formerly-good actor hamming it up as the villain. Loose Cannons promises the crazy team up of Gene Hackman (arguably the best actor ever) and Dan Aykroyd (arguably Dan Aykroyd), jumping through plate glass windows and kicking Dom DeLuise in the teeth. While this sort of happens, it’s a lot more painful than it sounds.

Loose Cannons is the food poisoning of the movie world: it looks like it’ll be a good time but it actually ends up being several hours of runny shit, sweating profusely and incessant abdominal cramping. Gene Hackman looks bored, Dan Aykroyd tries way too hard and Dom DeLuise waddles around in the worst movie we’ve dealt with thus far in the audio realm, all of which is directed by the perpetually questionable Bob Clark.

PS: Last week I said that this was going to be the last episode that sounds like we are hanging out underwater. I was wrong. After this episode, we changed locations and fixed up our equipment – this is the last of the ‘pilot’ shows, so to speak.

Music for this episode is provided by The Firework Express. The guys are launching their new EP at Club Lambi (4465 St. Laurent in Montreal) on December 17th, so go check that out if you like what you hear. While you’re at it, check out their video for the song Where Are We Now?, directed by Louis Lazaris.

As always, you can find us at several key locations, including:

The ever-powerful iTunes

Old-school direct download

Our Liberated Syndication page

Copying the RSS feed into whatever you use to download podcasts, you trend-bucking nerd.

Podcast #2: Passion Play (2011)

In Podcasts on December 8, 2011 at 9:10 am

The life that Dan aspires to.

Passion Play had been on my Why Does It Exist? radar for a while, but was disqualified for a myriad of reasons that include a) a theatrical release; b) a certain level of notoriety after Mickey Rourke went and ran his mouth about it before it came out; c) an entry in Nathan Rabin’s My Year of Flops column, which as you diehard fans know automatically disqualifies a film from being covered on the blog.

That rule, however, does not apply to the podcast, so Dan and I sat down and took in an hour and a half of soulful staring by Rourke and Hollywood sexpot extraordinaire Megan Fox under the bemused eyes of the Prince of Bemusement, Bill Murray. As you’ll see, your esteemed hosts had somewhat different reactions to the material.

Music for this episode is provided by The Hot Showers, a rock trio notable for being the first band in Why Does It Exist history not to feature Dan Weir. You can find their official website here and download their album at your own price here.

As always, there are several ways to obtain the podcast:

On the iTunes page!

A direct download!

Punching in the RSS feed to your favorite podcatching method!

Coming over to my house and having me put it on roughly fifty floppy disks!

This also marks the last episode in the hallowed We-Didn’t-Know-What-We-Were-Doing period of podcasting history. From this point on, sound will be 89% less tinny, but the material will remain equally as punny.

Podcast #1: The Bleeding

In Podcasts on December 1, 2011 at 9:33 am

This is the pigman, not Ed Asner. I can see how that would be confusing, though.

After a solid month of hard work, Pabst Blue Ribbons and going ‘Hello? Hello? Make it louder. There we go!’ into a microphone, we are finally ready to unveil the very first episode of Why Does It Exist?: The Podcast. To celebrate this new medium, we picked a movie that I used as the go-to example of a perfect Why Does It Exist? movie in my very first post, seven months and change ago: The Bleeding. This high-octane (pff) vampire movie (PFFF) boasts an all-star cast (FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF) includes Michael Madsen, Armand Assante, rap superstar DMX, tattoo superstar Kat Von D and neckless superstar Vinnie Jones.

There are many ways to obtain the podcast:

Subscribe on iTunes! (Please note that if you search for the show on iTunes store, it will not be available until tomorrow, Dec. 2nd)

Just a straight-up download!

Subscribe to the RSS feed!

Please write reviews on iTunes if you get a second, it helps us get noticed by iTunes and bumped up in the rankings so that more people can find us! Read the rest of this entry »