Flankers (2014) Dir. Justin Oakey
Despite being regarded as a very friendly province, the people who live in rural Newfoundland have a tendency to be incredibly prejudiced against people from other outport communities. These are places that are still fairly isolated with very few resources and a harsh climate to deal with, so while the residents definitely look after their own, they don't take too kindly to outsiders from neighbouring communities, especially if there has been a dispute between the two in the past.
Flankers, which I only saw for the first time the other day, tackles that subject matter head-on. I was actually really surprised by the honest portrayal and the lack of emphasis placed on the theme of “coming together against adversity” that is disgustingly common in practically everything about Newfoundland. Seeing it underplayed here was really nice. In case you're wondering about the relevancy of the title, “flankers” is a local word for those active fire embers that pop up on their own. Given how troublesome Newfoundland dialects can be to people not familiar with them, if you have any issues with understanding the dialogue, just let me know and I can translate it into common English for you.
Paperman (2012) Dir. John Kars
The link provided for
Paperman did not work for me (it would only play about a minute of the video), so I watched it
elsewhere on Youtube. While this was kind of cute at the start, I don't typically find those ridiculous romantic comedy films to be very amusing, so I kind of lost interest in this the longer it went on. I can certainly see the appeal to people who like those kind of films, but it's just not my cup of tea. It was nicely animated though.
Spider (2007) Dir. Nash Edgerton
I really enjoyed this. I was engrossed from the opening quote (attributed to mum because everyone's mothers have said that line at some point haha), to the amusing and unexpected ending. This is another film you really just need to see for yourself, so unfortunately there's nothing else I can really say about this other than for you guys just to go watch it.