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 through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Welcome back to the next picture show, a movie the week podcast devoted to a classic film in the way that it shaped our thoughts on a recent release.

I'm Scott Tobias here again with...

Genevieve Kosky.

And Tasha Robinson.

On our last episode, we talked about Casino, Martin Scorsese's epic story about the rise and fall of the mob-controlled Tangiers in Las Vegas.

On this episode, we're bringing in Lorraine Scafaria's Hustlers, which has earned a lot of

comparisons to Scorsese for its robust depiction of a criminal scam operating in the shadow

of a legitimate business.

Here, that business is a high-end strip club in 2007 where Destiny, an exotic dancer,

played by Constance Wu, befriends Ramona, the club superstar dancer, played by Jennifer Lopez.

The more experienced Ramona takes Destiny under her wing, showing how to lure the biggest

Wall Street whales into charging thousands of dollars in drinks and lap dances to their credit cards.

When the economy takes a turn, Ramona brings destiny and two other women, Mercedes and Annabelle,

into a freelance scam that limits the cut the club could take. Targeting rich men at bars,

and using an experimental concoction of ketamine and MDMA to impair their memory and judgment,

the women keep their marks conscious enough only to max out their credit cards and not remember

much of what happened in the morning. Their logic is that these men won't want to raise much of a fuss

about it. Much like casino, it's not all smooth sailing, however, and there are consequences

both legal and personal

...