The Toy Department – Episode 410

In Episode 410, Madden and Kolsky are both suffering from a little case of winter doldrums, but buck up after a few minutes of whining to get into:

  • The controversial conclusion of The Challenge: Battle of the Eras (5:20) and whether Season 40 lived up to the hype, plus some looking ahead to the debut of All-Stars 5 in a few weeks…
  • A frustrated reaction to Oscar hopeful Emilia Perez (37:40) and why movie musicals should cease to exist…
  • The relatively formulaic but reasonably entertaining Carry-On (53:10) and whether Netflix’s ambitions currently rise any higher than this sort of fare…
  • The surprisingly (for one of our hosts) excellent Saturday Night (58:50) and Jason Reitman’s impressive direction of a hectic real-life story…
  • Homework for next week (1:06:50), including: the Oscar hopeful Conclave (available on Peacock), Amazon Prime’s new shows Unstoppable and Cruel Intentions, and Natasha Rothwell’s show How to Die Alone on Hulu, plus revisiting Landman after its conclusion…

The Toy Department – Episode 97

In Episode 97, Derek Madden and Matt Kolsky dispense with the pleasantries and proceed immediately with:

  • Concert stories!! Madden’s experience with Queens of the Stone Age (1:00) and Kolsky’s trip to see Syd from The Internet (11:45)…
  • The new Netflix documentary Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond (15:05), which looks back at Jim Carrey’s performance as Andy Kaufman in the film Man on the Moon…
  • Season 2 of Netflix’s Joe Swanberg-directed show Easy (31:35) and how it picks up right where it left off…
  • The Amazon original show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (37:00) and how star Rachel Brosnahan makes it worth your time…
  • New albums from both Noel and Liam Gallagher (43:10) and how they’re definitely better off together…
  • Homework for this week (49:30), including: an upcoming end-of-year-review, the new U2 album, the new film The Disaster Artist and other upcoming releases, and perhaps finishing off Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix…

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