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

You believe that someone out of the past can enter and take possession of a living being?

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

Welcome to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film and how it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Scott Tobias here with...

Tasha Robinson.

Genevieve Toski.

Keith Phipps, who's normally here is on vacation, he'll be back for our next installment.

Here on the next picture show, we believe 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 consider

how it relates to a current release. This week, something big is happening. We've seen the

signs. We have the coordinates. Tasha, I think this episode is going to be out of this world.

Yes, they thought we were crazy, but after five months of diligent podcasting, the next

picture show finally makes contact. Our pairing this week is Stephen Spielberg's Close Encounters

of the Third Kind, and Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special, two movies about humans who quest for

the otherworldly. Both follow characters who have absolute faith in the outlandish prospect

of an alien rendezvous,

and that faith is miraculously rewarded in the end. In close encounters, Richard Dreyfus stars as an

electrician from Indiana who gets so close to a UFO that burns half his face. It turns out that

many people from around the world, including scientists and government agents, have experienced

strange occurrences

and visions too. All roads lead to Devil's Tower in Wyoming, but the question is whether

...