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

being?

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, devoted to a classic film and how it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Keith Phipps, here with...

Kosh Robinson, Genevieve Kosky. Scott Tobias.

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,

consider how it relates to a current movie. This week, we have two films about kids and their

bonds with powerful creatures. One creature is real, and one is imaginary. But both films

focus on what their relationship means to both kid and animal. But the similarities between our

two choices go even deeper. Tasha, now that I've won your trust

by Lurian you into the studio with food, can you tell us a little bit about these movies? Yeah, you're not giving me enough credit for having saved your life by stomping on that snake. This week we all saw Pete's Dragon, David Lowry's new remake of the 1977 Disney film of the same name, albeit one that only resembles its source in the broadest possible strokes. Pete's Dragon stars Oaks Fegley as the eponymous Pete, a kid left alone in the

forest when his parents experience a car accident in a remote-witted area. He's adopted by a

dragon he names Elliot, and years later both boy and dragon have to adapt when he's discovered

by a kindly forest ranger played by Bryce Dallas Howard, who grew up hearing tales of dragons from her father, played by Robert Redford. We entertain a few possible companion films to Pete's Dragon, but when we happen upon an Indy Wire interview with Lowry, in which he mentioned Carol Ballard's 1979 film The Black Stallion as a source of inspiration, we didn't have to entertain anymore. If the Black Stallion was made today, Larry told writer Bill Desowitz, it would be an art house movie. But when I was growing up, that was family entertainment. I do wish those lines weren't so clearly drawn. I wish there was a little more art in the mainstream and a little more mainstream in the art sometimes. So we decided to put the Black Stallion, a mainstream hit in 1979, next to Pete's Dragon,

a film very much attempting to summon the same artful spirit.

Both are visual feasts, both are anchored by remarkable performances from child actors,

and both emphasize visuals over language to convey why we love animals and how deep that love can go.

So, without further ado, let's board a doomed ship somewhere in the Mediterranean

that's loaded with some cargo that doesn't want to be there.

...