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 and the way it's shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Tasha Robinson here again with...

Keith Phipps.

Genevieve Kossacki.

It's Scott Tobias.

In our last episode, we talked about David Burns' true stories, a 1986 movie overview of a fictional Texas small town where the air is

clear, the radio reception is great, and the people are straight out of supermarket tabloids,

literally, because the film was inspired by a series of tabloid articles. But the film doesn't feel

like the kind of manic statement of oddity that belongs on the shelf next to the Weekly World News.

It's charmingly sincere and straight-faced,

with a kind of wide-eyed wonder at the world.

Burns' stage show American Utopia,

and the new-filmed version of the show directed by Spike Lee,

has a harder, more defiant edge than true stories,

particularly where it touches on current American topics

like low voter turnout,

or the growing protest movements against police

violence against unarmed black civilians. It's also a much more traditional concert film

than true stories, with Byrne and an ensemble performing the songs from his So-Will album,

...