It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present.

Do you believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living

we may be true with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome to The Next Picture Show, a movie of the week podcast dedicated to a classic film in the way it's shaped our thoughts on a new release.

I'm Tasha Robinson, here this week with Keith Phipps, Scott Tobias, and producer Genevieve Koski, taking the mic from Rachel Handler.

We're all firm believers in the idea that no film exists in a vacuum and that all culture is more interesting in context.

So every other week, we get together to talk over a classic film and how it relates to a current release.

Keith, you want to give us this week's movie pairing?

Absolutely.

As we're recording this, the seventh installment in the Star Wars series, The Force Awakens,

has topped a billion dollars in the box office after just two weeks in release.

According to Box Office Mojo, the film has broken 37

different box office records in categories like biggest ever opening day and opening week,

biggest PG-13 opening, biggest single-day take, and so forth. We haven't seen this kind of

widespread anticipation and rush to the box office for a Star Wars movie in more than 15 years.

Star Wars excitement last peaked in 1999 over

the Phantom Menace. For the old crowd who grew up on George Lucas's original trilogy, Phantom

Menace was a disappointment. And it sparked a lot of mockery and bitter complaining over the years,

as have the subsequent prequels. So Force Awakens, director and co-writer J.J. Abrams consciously

designed his film as a corrective for fans. It ignores

the prequels and reaches back to the first Star Wars movie, the 1977 film now commonly known as

a new hope for inspiration, plot points, and design. Since he was clearly comparing his movie

...