YouTube Is The Best TV Channel In The World

Monday is movies. And/or TV. Today it's about YouTube - the greatest channel in the world

I’ve said it before, I’m sure, but YouTube is my favourite TV channel. It is the best place to find…well, anything. It’s also my favourite radio station/music store - and though it is not my personal go-to for Audiobooks and Podcasts I have used it for that too. It’s filled with crap. But it is also incredible. You can find some amazing things - deleted, no longer available, or behind paywalls elsewhere, sometimes geoblocked on other services still, which seems unreasonable and archaic.

My best monthly expense is YouTube Premium. I pay about $15 a month for no ads. And when I started paying for the premium version, YouTube was trying to make original content, so I was an early adopter of the first two seasons of Cobra Kai. They realised they were doing a better thing by letting the users generate the content and sold off Cobra Kai to Netflix.

I have folders filled with content I may never get to on YouTube. But, also, I power through as much of it as I can. I have a folder jammed with instructional drumming clips, everything from full workshops, lessons and masterclasses to concerts, and short song performances. I have a folder of martial arts movies, one with horror, a bunch of documentaries. And there’s all the music too - I use it as my work stereo. A minimised YouTube screen is just easier for me to operate than Spotify or anything else.

As soon as I hear about something I feel I need to see or know about it’s YouTube. The one-stop-shop pretty much. And I say that a someone with subscriptions not only to many of the streamers, but also a monthly sub-service to my local video store (the last one standing!).

It’s a public holiday in New Zealand today. So I’m not aiming to write a lot. Instead I thought I’d share some of my recent, favourite finds.

This 1980 BBC documentary about John Williams’ composing for Star Wars - and his work up to that point.

Warpaint live from The Basement

This amazing fan-created documentary of Moe Tucker’s unique drumming style, including track-by-track recreations of how the songs were made

This fairly terrible Stephen King adaptation which I love for nostalgic reasons (including my discovery of the original short story)

Battletruck! One of the most profound movie experiences of my young life. This rotted my brain and I never correctly thanked my grandfather for that.

One of the best and most brutal comedy specials of recent times, in fact of all time:

An all-star cast recreating The Princess Bride from home locations during the pandemic

Documentary about the Larry Bird/Magic Johnson rivalry/friendship (one of my favourite basketball docos)

Raymond Carver doco:

Documentary about musical whistling:

Neil Postman being a regular profound motherfucker

The entire 4-hour doco about the Nightmare on Elm Street legacy - contains footage of Peter Jackson submitting a script for Elm Street 6, lol. (That was essentially his foot in the door for making LOTR btw).

The Steely Dan Aja Classic Albums episode:

Early Van Damme. Forget irony. Forget silliness. Early Van Damme is good Van Damme.

John Ronson destroying Malcolm Gladwell Pt.1

John Ronson destroying Malcolm Gladwell Pt.2

Alright, that’s more than enough for the start of your week and for the rest of your day off. Some of these clips and films and things I’ve watched dozens of times before, or since finding again on YouTube. Others are newer too many but just as wonderful.

See anything you like? And anything you have that’s special for you that you want to add below?