I watched Bo Burnham: what a week or so ago. It was different, for stand-up, which is nice. A lot of musical numbers mixed in, which isn’t everybody’s cup of tea but I quite enjoyed. Definitely some offensive stuff in there, though my brain just spent a week being drowned in Mexico so I don’t really remember the exact nature of the offensiveness. It’s actually free on YouTube as well.
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My husband is a serious martial artist - highly ranked black belt in several styles and an expert in several weapons - and we have watched Fight Quest together. The couple of styles he studied he thought that it gave a very good introduction to the culture and fighting and the teachers on the show are very respected, truly the top teachers in the world. I loved the one in Israel - woah - some tough people!
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come to think of it, there’s quite a few good martial arts flicks that I’ve seen on NetFlix. Have you seen High Kick Girl, Ong Bak, or Ip Man? They’re all really good. Hopefully they’re all still available.
High Kick Girl centers on a high-school-aged karate expert who takes no guff. She’s badass and she can, uh, kick really high. Like, you will be surprised how high. There’s a scene where her sensei is doing his form below a waterfall, you can practically see his chi coming through the TV.
Ong Bak is set in historic Thailand, so we’re talking Muay Thai. All the sets and costumes are–for lack of a better term–really, really cool looking. It stars Tony Jaa who is 100% totally and completely off the chain.
Ip Man is a dramatization of the life of the eponymous Kung-Fu instructor of great renown. Very interesting life story and the fights are incredible. Here’s a pic of the actual Ip Man (Man is his actual name, which is confusing at first to an anglophone.) This is taken later in life than the film’s setting with one of his more famous students. You may recognize him…
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Ip Man is floating around right now in my recommendations - I am going to give it a click.
Why We Fight - Documentary on the military-industrial complex:
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Ip Man 2 should be floating around as well. I find there’s an interesting amount of China pride in a lot of movies I find on Netflix in a way I haven’t really seen in the past 20 years. Ip Man and IM2 are both very slickly produced well done films, and whether this is a spin off of the influence of filmmakers like Jackie Chan and Ang Lee is something I’m very interested in.
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This might be a bit old for much of the audience here (or maybe not, because BB readers are always in the know), but here’s my recently discovered gem, but it’s not really on Netflix that I’m aware. Youtube, <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLmZRyUbgFI>The T.A.M.I. Show (1964) and be prepared for the James Brown segment. It was a feature of numerous huge acts, The Rolling Stones, The Supremes, The Beach Boys, and Brown upstages all of them. Holy shit what a show.
We loved the Ip Man movies. Not highly rated, but we greatly enjoyed Shaolin, 13 Assasins, Man of Tai Chi, and a slew of Chinese costume dramas.
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This is totally unrelated to movies but I just had a dream that I met you. I knew it was you because you had a garage with your avatar name on the interior walls in giant letters, so when I passed by your house with the garage doors open I knew it was you.
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That’s terribly amusing, not least because the garage is not at all my territory. I mean I have stuff in there, but most of the time, I can never find anything because it’s my SO’s playground. It gave me a great visual, though. I may have to make a little April 1 modification on the Coke fridge. Mwah ha haaa. 
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I’ve been watching more of the 30 for 30 series:
The Best that Never Was - about Marcus Dupree - is pretty much worth it for the footage of him playing high school ball and for the photos of him during his comeback ripped to high heaven. Also for the way he is just a cool cat who really didn’t seem to care about the money and had a supernatural gift. As a film, I think it could have used a bit of trimming. I felt it dragged a bit.
Broke - about how all these pro athletes go broke - is a fascinating insight into the lives of these players and how the huge sums of money get pissed away. The film has an interesting production, with interviews done against a blown up dollar bill backdrop, blinged out graphics, but the music drove me up the wall.
Unguarded - Chronicles Chris Herren’s descent into harder and harder drug use, and finally getting clean. I really hated the line about “He was a total junkie but he would play these amazing games strung out,” because it is such a myth about drugs that you are incapable of hiding what is going on, of performing in a way that most people have no idea that you are on drugs. This is a standard drug story - starts out partying with his home boys, then gets into harder and harder shit until he is a strung out junkie who can’t get his shit together. Chris Herren himself is the draw of this film; he’s a beautiful and articulate man and his interviews and speeches are nice to watch -as is the footage of him playing. I thought it was well produced but the narrative arc is fixed by the drug addiction story, so feels a little too familiar.
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I just saw this documentary. Wow. Great!
and then after I watched this, I found more information on this newly discovered artist and the free for all over her work. I think it’s worth watching them both.
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Detectorists.
It’s all up in the happy mutantdom
I’ve recommended it before, though I have NO idea why it’s in 3D. Nothing in it is action movie-like. Also, Air Disasters. Despite the prosaic title, it’s a great series. Especially if you’re interested in how systems and people fail.
Also, in case you missed it:
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I once saw a movie with a name like this - I don’t know if it was the same movie - where every fight move was replayed twice. This was so irritating that it made my list of worst movies I’ve ever seen.
I don’t recall that the fights were replayed twice in High Kick Girl. Maybe they were, but seems like something that would be more memorable. I wrote that post years ago and watched the movie before that. If they did that, I guess it didn’t bother me. Mostly I remember that the girl could kick really high.
I’m drawing blanks but if Primer is still on there, that was a good one.
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Also set in Cornwall: Poldark which I’m mostly recommending for lots of shirtless adorably smirky Aidan Turner. (Amazon, free on Prime)
Hinterland (Y Gwyll in Welsh) I am a fan of slow broody murder dramas set against dramatic scenery. This is mostly cool because they record the show both in English and entirely in Welsh, for Welsh television. (Netflix, 2 seasons)
Sense8: This is a tough one, because people either loved it or haaated it. Fair warning, it takes at least 3 episodes before you have any idea what’s going on. Eight people across the world discover they have a psychic connection. Do not watch with small children in the room unless you’re ok with extremely explicit gay sex scenes. (Netflix original, second season pending)
I wanted to recommend The Cafe, which is set nearby(*) in Weston-super-Mare and is one of the best “gentle” English comedies in decades (Michelle Terry is a worthy successor to Felicity Kendal), but it has disappeard from streaming sites. (It was on both Hulu and Netflix.)
(*) Before I get flamed, this is in the concept-space metric.
Oh, Les Revenants (listed as The Returned) is excellent. And Netflix recently added season 2. (Haven’t seen it yet. Watched iZombie instead since I was in there. That’s also good. 
)
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