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 back to The Next Picture Show, a movie of the week podcast devoted to a classic film in the way it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Keith Phipps, here again with... Tosh Robinson. And Genevieve-Pocke. And once again, Absent, it's Scott Tobias. Scott, come back. We miss you. Send Batman for him. Yeah. In the first half of this conversation, we talked about Batman, the 1989 Tim Burton film that brought Batman to the big screen and helped redefine the character as a grim Avenger of the night

for a wider audience. Since that film, Batman seldom been out of the spotlight. It was followed

by one Burton directed sequel and two Joel Schumacher-helmed follow-ups that started to push the series

back toward the camp of the 60s TV show. Meanwhile, Batman became a TV

fixture again via the brilliant Batman the animated series, then returned to the big screen via

Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, and just last year returned yet again as half of the

matchup in the title of Batman v. Superman, Don of Justice. Part of what makes Batman's latest

outing, the Lego Batman movie so clever is a way it not only doesn't try to ignore those past incarnations, it treats them all as being part of the character's history. It's free to do this by virtue of being a spinoff of the Lego movie, which created a realm in which Lego versions of famous characters could live side by side and enjoy fun and joke-filled animated adventures alongside one another.

The Lego Batman movie spins off one of that movie's best characters,

the vain, vulnerable Batman, voiced by Will Arnett, into his own movie,

and fills it with references to Batman lore,

from obscure villains to references to the 60s show that every other Batman movie has done its best to ignore.

But it's also at heart a real Batman story.

Lego Batman is a billionaire who's sure of his own awesomeness and driven to fight crime,

but he's also a lonely guy afraid of commitment.

Over the years, Batman's alternated between being a lone avenger to heading up an expansive

bat family, and the changes have tended to reflect what we want for Batman at any given point

in time and shaped his characterization. Do we want from Batman at any given point in time,

...