FREE CINEMA NOW

#InformedImages is a Free Cinema Now series that studies and brings to light influential films and other examples of moving images that informed and inspired specific visuals in later works. I remember the exact the moment it clicked together for me. It was about half an hour into episode 2 (directed by  Josef Kubota Wladyka ) of Narcos: Mexico on Netflix . The camera crept across the dry, desert landscape toward a hole in the ground, where Rafael Caro Quintero (a.k.a. Rafa, played by Tenoch Huerta Mejía ) was digging furiously, in an attempt create a makeshift aqueduct to help grow his field of marijuana. It recalled images from the earlier sections of Paul Thomas Anderson 's masterpiece T here Will Be Blood, when Daniel Plainview (played by Daniel Day-Lewis ) was digging for oil underneath the rocky ground. Then, as I continued to watch Narcos: Mexico , a more striking visual parallel to There Will Be Blood began to emerge. For example, as Rafa and his boss Miguel Ángel F

At the end of Paul Thomas Anderson 's 2012 drama The Master,  the protagonist -- or antihero? -- Freddie Quell ( Joaquin Phoenix ), an alcoholic and violent WWII vet who spent most of the film's running time butting heads with his post-war environment, almost seemed to be at ease finally. With the first teaser trailer for Todd Phillips ' Joker (also starring Phoenix) dropping online today, I couldn't help but draw a new cinematic connection. What my latest mashup trailer suggests is that since the 1950s, Freddie has grown into a new person...Arthur Fleck (a.k.a The Joker) in the 1970s! Take a look and put on a happy face.