Picked up Koyaanisquatsi and Powaqqatsi on DVD today

... and I'm watching Koyaanisquatsi right now. Oh, freude!

I first saw Koyaanisquatsi while I was in college, living at the House of a Dozen Stoners. It was a rather worn-out VHS copy that had been taped from a PBS broadcast. Even with bad tracking, intermittently poor sound quality and occasional static on a crappy old television, it was still just absolutely incredible, and beautiful, and heartbreaking.

I tried to get ahold of it for years, but it was out of print. At one point, laserdiscs and VHS tapes of decent quality were going for $100+ on eBay, and I just wasn't willing to pay that much. But now it's available on DVD with Powaqqatsi as a set, and I splurged a little on myself. Most of the DVDs I watch these days involve superheroes, animation, giant monsters or talking animals, so it's a nice change.

I haven't watched Powaqqatsi yet (since I last saw it in about 1999), but that's the one that's been in my head a lot lately. The montages of advertising and television violence are just chilling, and the film as a whole is both worldessly eloquent and perfectly timely.

Anyway, I'm going to put an Amazon link in the sidebar and I highly recommend both of these films to anyone for their music, their visual artistry and their message.