This episode of Flick Fix takes a trip through emotional chaos, underground confusion, and one very unsettling midlife crisis. Austin starts with two recent releases: The Drama, a dark comedy about an engaged couple whose pre-wedding bliss is threatened by one conversation that may or may not deserve its dramatic title, and Exit 8, a Japanese psychological mystery where a man trapped in a subway station has to spot tiny abnormalities if he ever wants to escape. Romance problems and public transit anxiety: truly, cinema contains multitudes.
Then, for the spotlight review, Austin dives into the 1966 classic Seconds, directed by John Frankenheimer. It’s a strange, stylish, and deeply eerie film about a man who gets the chance to completely start over with a new face, a new name, and a new life. Of course, because this is a movie and not a motivational seminar, that dream comes with a whole lot of fine print. Tune in for three films about people trapped in one way or another—by relationships, by hallways, and by the terrifying possibility that becoming someone new might not fix what was broken in the first place.