"The Fantastic Mr. Fox," directed by Wes Anderson, starting George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman (2009)

I went to see “The Fantastic Mr. Fox” on Sunday afternoon. That was a mistake. Not the decision to go see the film, which was awesome, but the timing.

The theatre was filled with kids and families, and when I saw all those chattering, excited children ramped up to see the film, I got a little worried that I had made a mistake and I was in for a full-on kids’ movie.

But it wasn’t at all. Though the stop-animation and the family-friendly story line (based on a book by Roald Dahl) make this movie appeal to families, it’s equally a great story for grown ups.

I mean, I pretty much knew that. Director Wes Anderson has a way of making films that give back as much as you put into them. You know what I mean?

“Rushmore,” “The Life Aquatic” and “The Royal Tenenbaums” are perfect examples of this. The first time you watch them they’re funny and entertaining and beautiful to watch – but every time you go back you learn something new, you pick up on a whole other layer of detail and wit that you didn’t notice before.

“Mr. Fox” is Anderson’s first animated film, but it has many of the characteristics of his other movie -- smart writing, clever dialogue, perfect composition in every frame, a vintage-y throwback look -– all of those features are there.

It’s also starring many of the cast-members he likes to work with – Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray – and some other new additions, George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Willem Dafoe as the villainous rat. It’s a good cast.

So here’s what happens.

As Mr. Fox, George Clooney partly reprises his Danny Ocean role – but with fatherhood, family and responsibility mixed in.

He’s a fox whose God-given ability to steal birds of all sorts, has been clipped by a promise to his wife (Streep), made after an incident when his cockiness nearly got them killed.

He’s okay with the arrangement for about two years (that’s 12 in fox-years) but then he gets restless and decides to pull off one last big job before settling into retirement (“Ocean’s 11” much??)

Of course it goes brilliantly – and he realizes he’s too good not to steal.

“If what I think is happening, is happening… it better not be,” says Mrs. Fox when she starts to get suspicious

It doesn’t take long before Mr. Fox upsets the wrong group of farmers, and they launch a revenge mission against him and the rest of the local animal kingdom.

While the farmer and his neighbors try to destroy the animals, they rally and try to steal as much as they possibly can from the farmers.

It’s a pretty simple story, but cleverly told and with the kind of depth that Anderson fans will be searching for. And it has such a beautiful look too. The puppets are a perfect blend of human and animal characteristics, with a unique texture that makes them look so real. You can actually see the fur move where it was touched by the animators.

The animal/human connection is clear in a couple of other places too. At one point Mr. Fox is arguing with his lawyer – Bill Murray’s badger – about purchasing property, and their discussion quickly turns into a vicious but brief animal scrap, after which they go back to their civilized discussion.

Owen Wilson has a small role – and his character looks nothing like his voice sounds. But don’t get too excited because he’s only in a scene or two.

Willem Dafoe is a nice surprise as the alcoholic rat that guards the farmer’s cider supply.

Almost all of the actors in the film voice their characters in a subtle and understated way, which is really refreshing.

Clooney is the only character that is sort of in-your-face and unmistakable – maybe a little over-acted. And there’s a little too much of him. It seems like he’s in almost every scene of the film. I could have done with a little less, but it was no big deal.

This is a great movie! If you have kids, use them as an excuse to go see it. If not, be brave and go see it on your own, but go late or early to avoid the kids, if you possible can.

"Stand By Me" (1986) Directed by Rob Reiner, based on the novella by Stephen King

“Stand By Me.”

Those words alone, for a lot of people, are enough to evoke a warm sense of nostalgia. In part, I think that’s because many of us 20-somethings watched the film when we were kids, and it reminds us of that time and place in our lives.

But also, I think that title has the effect of conjuring up warm memories of the adventures, friendships and scrapes of our own childhood, which helped shape us into the people we are today.

Like the narrator of the film, we look back on those times as some of the best in our lives, and we can connect to the kids in the story and what they go through over the course of two days, walking down the train tracks, searching for a dead body.

I bought the DVD a while back and watched the film this afternoon for the first time in a long time.

It’s such a simple but brilliant story.

Four friends, Gordie (Wil Wheaton), Chris (River Phoenix), Teddy (Corey Feldman) and Vern (Jerry O’Connell) overhear one of their older brothers talking about seeing the body of a boy their age, who has been missing for most of the summer.

The older brother, a member of the local Cobra Snakes gang – led by bad-ass Ace (Kiefer Sutherland) -- wants to keep the discovery a secret because he was in a stolen car when he spotted the body outside of town, near the railway tracks.

As a result, the younger boys set out on-foot to find it, believing they will be hailed as local heroes for making the discovery.

They’re the perfect band of small-town misfits – thrown together more by the fact they live in the same place and are roughly the same age, than anything else – a reality of small town or rural life.

Gordie is a sensitive, deep thinker, Chris is the tough leader, Teddy is the fun, crazy and a little bit dangerous member of the group, and Vern is the self-described “fat kid” who tends to get picked on but is still a lot of fun to have around.

They’re about 12 years old, the summer is winding down, and they do a lifetime of growing up on that two-day trek, from facing down their own demons and fears, to battling leach-infested waters and the infamous train-racing incident.

The story is told by Richard Dreyfuss, a writer and the grown-up version of one of the kids, who decides to put the story down on paper after reading that one of his childhood companions had been killed.

In the opening scene he’s pulled over on the side of a country road in a truck, holding the newspaper in his hand, stunned by the news of his friend’s death.

Then he begins to recall the adventure and disappears only to show up periodically to help tell the story.

Reiner somehow manages to shoot the film in that patina of memory. You know some
elements of the tale are being exaggerated slightly, and others played down – and some elements have probably developed into mythic proportions in the years between the story happening and him telling it. Simpy put, we’re seeing the story as it is being remembered.

It works. We all tell stories that way, or remember key moments in our lives that way.
Somehow they take on a little bit of a life of their own, and Reiner manages to suggest that that’s happening here, but the story still comes across as authentic and real.

The dialogue, for instance, is perfect. At times, the boys act much older than they are, adopting lines they have probably heard form adults. For instance: “That’s when a cigarette tastes best, after dinner.”

But at other times it’s clear that they’re just kids – like when Gordie confesses to Chris that he thinks his dad hates him.

Also, they swear all the time in the way that kids do when they’re just figuring out how to do it.

Though there are many childish moments along the way, the climax of the film is a very grown up one, where Chris and Gordie learn what it means to stand together and stand up for what’s right – facing down the Cobra Snakes.

In that moment, they become men in a small way, and I think that’s why this film resonates with so many of us. Looking back we see those milestone moments too, where years of growing up seemed to be crammed into a few brief moments and decisions.

Still relevant, timeless and beautiful. If you haven’t seen this movie, well, you just have to.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes from the movie:

Gordie: Shut up.
Teddy, Vern, Chris: I don't shut up. I grow up. And when I look at you, I throw up. Aghhh!
Gordie: And then your mom goes around the corner and she licks it up.

Teddy: This is my age! I'm in the prime of my youth, and I'll only be young once!
Chris: Yeah, but you're gonna be stupid for the rest of your life.

Vern: Nothing like a smoke after a meal.
Teddy: Yeah... I cherish these moments.
[group chuckles]
Teddy: What? What did I say?

Vern: Ha-ha! You flinched! Two for flinching! Two for flinching!

Vern: Come on you guys. Let's get moving.
Teddy: Yeah, by the time we get there, the kid won't even be dead anymore.
I think this film – based on a book by Stephen King and directed by Rob Reiner --

"Where The Wild Things Are" (Directed by Spike Jonze, 2009)

I didn't read "Where the Wild Things Are" when I was a kid, so I didn't go into the movie with any preconceived ideas or deep attachment to the seven-sentence illustrated children's book.

I didn't really know what to expect, beyond a few words from my friend Tyrone and the knowledge that my friend Mary was a massive fan of the book -- and she's one whose opinion I respect.

I was really surprised by the film, which basically tells the story of a highly imaginative and emotional boy, his struggle to be understood and the world he creates in his imagination as a place of escape when things in his life -- as he sees them -- get really rocky.

Max, played by Max Records (The Brothers Bloom), is brilliant as the imaginative youngster. In the film, he explodes during an argument with his mother who is struggling to control him, while her boyfriend is over for dinner.

Cute and adorable at times, precocious, frustrating and maddening at others, Records is believable and real in a role that many child-actors would have made cutesy and annoying.

Instead of that, Records' Max is the kid whose potential is huge -- but who is also on the verge of being out of control, all the time. Basically, he's the kid who stands a 50/50 chance of ending up in either the gifted kids'classroom, or in detention, for the duration of his school career.

The film provides this background briefly and adequately and we learn quickly what kind of a boy we're dealing with here.

That understanding deepens broadly when Max and his mom square off, and he bolts out of the house, screaming 'it's not my fault!' -- and disappears into a nearby forest at dusk.

Then the line between the real and imaginary blurs as Max climbs into a small boat and sails away.

Where he ends up, is in an island dreamscape of his own creation -- the place "where the wild things are."

Here he meets a disharmonious band of misfit monsters in the midst of a massive domestic dispute.

Carol, the strong but emotionally volatile leader of the group (voiced by James Gandolfini -- sound familiar to his role in "The Sopranos"??) is on a rampage, destroying the huts they have built (and which keep them sleeping in separate spaces, rather than in a big pile as was the case in the past.)

In short, this is a dysfunctional family in need of a counsellor -- and that becomes Max, who is crowned as their new king in hopes he can make things right.

At first, he does, restoring joy and and comradeship and using his "magic shield" to keep out the loneliness that has plagued the "things" recently. All logic here is childlike and simple as the monsters and Max smash things and wrestle and create their own fun world.

But there's a dark side just under the surface too, and Max starts to see that solving the "things'" problems isn't going to be easy -- and as they start to doubt his royal pedigree and exhibit their dangerous side.'

These monstrous creatures are rendered convincingly through a mix of actors in costumes and computer generated graphics -- it's impossible tell where the real ends and the fake begins -- kind of like the way Max sees the world. They are mostly lovable, without being cute, and protective and safe while still being dangerous -- kind of like C.S. Lewis described "Aslan" in the Narnia series.

The narrative presents a fascinating insight into the imagination of a little boy, but it doesn't provide an obvious moral. Mostly, Max is just trying to figure out how to do the right thing. He asks two wise old owls "How do I make everything OK?"

But in the end, when he's done all he can -- won a couple of battles but lost a few others -- he realizes it's time to go home. After all, he's still a kid, still needs a warm bed at the end of the day, and still needs his mom to hug him and tell him everything is going to be alright.

"All the Real Girls," (2003, Directed by David Gordon Greene)

I was just in China, and while there my girlfriend and I were staying at a hostel in Beijing that had a big TV and movie collection in the common room. One afternoon we watched "Lars and the Real Girl" with Ryan Gosling.

It was pretty good, and while we were watching I told Katie that the title reminded me of this other movie I had seen a few years ago, called "All the Real Girls," which I really liked.

That's about as far as the conversation went. A few days later we arrived back in Toronto on a Saturday night, pretty jet-lagged due to the 12-hour time difference.
I couldn't sleep and and ended up staying up most of the night. Well, at something like 2 a.m., I turned on the TV and "All The Real Girls" was playing on TVO.

Such a strange coincidence to see this little indie flick that almost no one has seen, just a couple of days after talking about it probably for the first time since I watched it back in 2004. AND, making things even more spooky, the lead character in ATRG is Paul Schneider, who ALSO played Lars' brother in LATRG. Oh man.

But anyway, the point in, the movie is pretty brilliant and I thought I'd write a few words about it.

As mentioned, "All the Real Girls" stars Paul Schneider as Paul, a young man, maybe in his early twenties, with a reputation as a womanizer in the small North Carolina mountain town that he grew up in and has never really left.

The lovely Zooey Deschanel ('The Go-Getter,''Yes Man') is Noel, the sister of Paul's best friend who is from the same town but has spent most of her life attending boarding school.

The short version is that she comes home, meets Paul and they quickly fall in love in one of those unexpected, implausible romances that sweeps both participants off their feet and leaves them gasping for air. Just before, of course, it all comes crashing down.

While Schneider may not be all that believable as a womanizer (picture frumpy hair and plaid insulated work shirts), the story and the film's portrayal of small-town, rural life as well as the crushing impact of a first true love, are right on.

When Paul meets Noel he is completely smitten and decides he wants to try and do things differently this time. He knows his other relationships with women were shallow and meaningless and based entirely on sex, so he decides his best chance of making things work with Noel is to avoid sex altogether.

There's an honest integrity in this attempt, and you sense that Noel represents the kind of rare opportunity that Paul might not see very often in his dead-end, economically depressed town.

It seems to work, and the chemistry and connection build between them in a way that is really tangible and real for any viewer who has experienced something like that.

Paul is convincing as the tough small-towner who dreams of something bigger and better, but is honest enough to acknowledge that his friends, family his life and living are all rooted in that town, and so is he.

Noel, beautiful and alive and different from anything he knows, is the light that shines through into his sheltered life and gives him hope that his dreams might not be unreasonable.

But just as their love is powerful, quick and unexpected, it is also fleeting and fragile, and the film's portrayal of the fast collapse of their bond is also accurate and honest, and even a little painful to watch at times.

In one scene, after Paul realizes things are breaking down, completely beyond his control, he simply pounds his fist into the ground in pain and frustration, unable to express his heartbreak in any other way. The scene, which could have easily been cheesy and forgettable, is handled in a way that makes it searing and real -- one of the moments I remembered vividly from the first time I watched it.

Woven through the film are small snapshots of conversations between the characters, each of them struggling with their own set of issues. One has gotten his girlfriend pregnant, another wrestles with his relationship with his longtime girlfriend and questions what to do. These vignettes form a sort of photo album of a small town, and if you grew up in one, like I did, these snapshots resonate.

The film's tagline, according to IMDB, is "Love is a puzzle. These are the pieces." And I think that fits pretty well. Everyone in the film is working out, in some form and some fashion, what love looks like for them, and the end result is the beautiful telling of a real love story that many people know first hand and can connect with.

ATRG is slow and a little sleepy, like the town where the film is set, and it doesn't break a ton of new ground, but it works really well and I recommend it -- unless that's just the jet lag talking...

(Oddly, it also stars Danny McBride, who plays the 2nd pot dealer in "Pineapple Express," and a crewmember in "Tropic Thunder," the ballplayer in "Eastbound and Down" and is also in "Superbad," "Hotrod" and a ton of other recent films.)

'Journey to the Center' (Director Jens Hoffman, 2008)

This year the Banff Mountain Film Festival redeemed itself. I've been going for years, and loving it, but last year was a huge disappointment. Maybe I just picked a night that had a bad lineup, but it was LAME.

After years of trying to get my brother to come, he did, and I felt like I had to apologize afterwards. There was a boring, tedious, film about a 24-hour mountain bike race (yup, pretty much a lot of footage of guys on bikes on a trail), something stupid about old guys rock-climbing, and pretty much nothing else that I can remember.

Oh wait! There was one cool film about a punk band on tour that was also obsessed with nordic skiing. So between late-night thrashy shows at seedy bars they'd head out into the bush and go skiing. Very cool.

ANYWAY, sorry, went off on a tangent there, this year, the BMFF, held as always at the Bloor Cinema, was once again awesome. It probably helped that it had two great sponsors this year -- the Alpine Club of Canada's Toronto division, and the Rock Oasis climbing gym.

If I can remember, there were two films about climbing -- one set in Scotland, another in Germany near the Czech border (crazy rock climbing on spires with barely any gear), a cute 5-minute film about a Swiss kid overcoming his fear of the water, one that had some awesome footage of avalanches but otherwise sucked, and my personal favourite, "Into the Center."

This film followed three BASE jumpers (BASE stands for Bridge, Antennae, Structure, Earth and is the sport where crazy people jump off dangerous things and pull their parachute moments before dying) who travel to a remote part of China to jump into one of the world's largest vertical caves. It's called The Heavenly Pit.

One of the jumpers, Chris Mcdougall, is from Australia, another, Jeb Corliss is from the U.S. and the third, Paul Fortun is from Norway.

I was pretty skeptical at the beginning of this film. It attempted to delve pretty deeply into their reasons for embracing such a dangerous sport, and the results were a bit tiresome. Corliss claimed the sport saved his live, and that as a child he was "extremely suicidal." Ok. "Douggs" talked about how he had let family members down when they needed him because of his obsession with the sport. Sure...
Paul was cool though. A typical Scandinavian, he didn't say much that wasn't necessary and just seemed to really like doing crazy things, but in a very controlled manner.

Just getting to the pit was a major adventure. Several planes, a boat up the Yangtze river, hiking on foot, and literally days of travel were required to get to this massive hole in the earth.

Fortun had seen a photo several years before of a Chinese tightrope walker crossing the pit in the 1970s. After going there himself to see if the cable was still in place, he had been working ever since to make the trip happen.

But still, the team wasn't even sure they jump would be possible.

Along their journey to the cave there's a few too many long artsy shots of the team members gazing off into the mountains contemplatively, or awkwardly chatting about the surroundings with each other while appearing to be nonchalant. And there's WAY too much of the American, Corliss. He seems like a nice enough guy, but seriously, he talks way too much.

One of my favourite moments is when Douggs, the Aussie, ventures off on his own and meets some young students who invite him to visit their school. He does, and finds a school-wide talent show has been organized in his honour and the kids in the remote town are pumped to have him visit. He loves it, and the magic of the moment is written on his face even until he leaves, a full four hours later.

The filmmaker won me over with moments like that. By the time the guys are packing their chutes to actually jump, the sense of anticipation is palpable and I found I had somehow come to care about them a little.

When they slid out over the massive pit on a tiny cable, chills went down my spine. And as Corliss unhooked his safety leash and started swinging on the cable preparing to let go, the audience actually held its breath. When he did let go, and freefell into that cave for what seemed like an eternity before pulling his chute, people actually applauded.

It was pretty solid storytelling. It was no less exciting when the other two jumped, and their excitement in the immediate moments after landing was infectious.

Maybe because the sport is so dangerous, and the jump was so risky, or because it took so much work to make it happen or because they spent so much time talking about it, you actually cared by the end whether they made it or not. At the beginning, I dind't anticipate that happening.

I liked this movie. It made me even more excited about going to China in ONE MONTH.
Maybe I'll visit the Heavenly Pit! Or that school, or one like it. But I probably won't be doing any BASE jumping. Katie wouldn't be a fan of that. And neither would I. HA!

"The Sheltering Sky" (Paul Bowles, 1949)

I spent a year in Morocco, travelling to almost every dusty corner of that country with my friends James and Daniel.

We explored Casablanca and Marrakech and Essouera and Chefchouen, and countless, nameless, hills and valleys and towns and villages in between.

We traveled by bus, train, and bush taxi, and by hitch hiking, and we made friends in every place we visited.

As a result of all that I feel like Morocco is one of the few foreign places where I have truly gotten to the point where I felt ‘at home.

It’s a beautiful country with incredibly hospitable, generous people and I love it a lot.

So, I admit to possessing a somewhat snobby attitude sometimes, when I’m watching a movie or reading a book, that is set in El Maghreb.

It’s sort of an ‘I know Morocco better than they do” sort of attitude, and I’m pretty embarrassed about it.

But when I was reading Paul Bowles’ “The Sheltering Sky,” I had to just sit back in wonder and accept that this guy lives and breathes Morocco and knows the country and the people, inside and out.

TSS is a perfect example of Bowles' ability to take his readers under the skin of this foreign land, to experience the country from an insider’s point of view.

The book begins with three Americans disembarking from a freight ship on a jetty in a grubby North African port town in 1947.

The trio is comprised of a married couple, Kit and Port Moresby, and their friend Tunner. They’re rich, cocky, artsy Americans out to see North Africa -- living up to many of the negative stereotypes that still follow American tourists around the world.

Bowles immediately sets the scene, accurately describing a place that smacks first-timers upside the head with a blast of dust and heat and foreign smells and languages that can be completely disorienting.

It quickly becomes clear that there is a strange dynamic between the three. Kit is feminine and fragile and sensitive, but with a deep rooted fear and insecurity that can result in a mean edge.

Port, her husband, is arrogant, smart, driven – and with little ability to see beyond his own personal goals.

Tunner is shallow and dull, but incredibly handsome and charming, and mostly he’s just along for the ride.

Port is the driving force behind their journey. He insists he is a “traveler not a tourist” and believes tourists take trips, while travelers slowly migrate from one part of the world to another, over a period of years. I like that concept.

The book, which has been adapted to film by Bernardo Bertolucci (starring John Malkovich and Debra Winger), is both a literal journey into the fabric of Morocco and its people, and an exploration of the minds of Americans who find themselves dealing with difficult circumstances in extremely foreign lands.

Bowles follows the characters as they take their very American style of travel – full wardrobes and bottles of champagne and massive stacks of luggage, further and further south into Morocco and away from European influence. The quality of their hotels declines the further they go, the pool of people who speak French, evaporates, the sand flies increase, and their adventure quickly becomes much rougher than expected.

When Port and Kit finally split from Tunner, in order to have some quality time, the situation really begins to decline as Port becomes sick with Typhoid, and as Kit begins to unravel psychologically as her two anchors, Tunner and Port, no longer give her something to grip on to.

From there the story begins to really get interesting as it takes a massively unexpected turn, deep in the Sahara desert, as Kit becomes completely unhinged as her inability to understand or adapt to her circumstances, drives her to the edge.

I wish I could say more about this without giving away the plot, except to say that through her experience we begin to see an entirely different viewpoint of Morocco and its people.

The physical journey this book takes captures accurately the beauty, immensity, and diversity of the Sahara – the shifting colours, deceptive gentleness, and shocking power. I can only imagine there is accuracy too, in the way Bowles describes the journey right to the edge of madness, brought on my helplessness and instability in a land that could swallow a person completely – and in this case, does.

Like most of what I’ve read by Bowles, TSS is undeniably dark and disturbing, but mixed with that is an honest appreciation for beauty and culture and that fascinating clash that occurs when very different people, from very different worlds, come together.

Is this the end of the community newspaper?

I started my career in journalism as many reporters do -- at a small town newspaper, covering everything from grandma's 90th birthday, to school board issues, court and local politics.

Managing Editor Francis Baker gave me my first real job, working as the education, court, and environment reporter at the Port Hope Evening Guide -- one of Canada's oldest daily newspapers.

It was where I learned to write a news story, to cover an event, to dig up sources and build contacts, and find stories when there was a paper to be filled, and nothing 'newsy' seemed to be going on.

I loved it. Port Hope became my home for more than three years, and my job at the paper made it possible for me to become part of the fabric of that community -- learning the issues that the town faced, the concerns of the people and celebrating important milestones in the life of the historic town.

I interviewed Paul Martin while working for that tiny daily paper, followed from start to finish a heartbreaking fight to save a vital community school, and my colleague Karen Lloyd and I uncovered a big story about a slumlord's abuse of 70 residents in a broken down hotel.

I learned how to be a journalist in that town, and at that paper.

But little by little, money began to affect the way it was operated. Eventually, the Port Hope newsroom was closed in exchange for a tiny circulation office, and we reporters were moved to Cobourg to share an office with the Cobourg Star -- a bitter blow for Port Hopers who felt they were losing their own paper.

More recently the circulation office was closed too, and layoffs were made to the already tiny staff of the Guide and Star, so that only one sports reporters was covering two towns, and a couple of news reporters were all that were in place to cover a huge area from Colborne to Port Hope.

And now, the blow that everyone had braced for has also come. The Evening Guide, Cobourg Star and Colborne Chronicle have all been axed, replaced by "Northumberland Today," a single, regional paper that will cover all three communities.

For context, I should tell you that the Guide was founded in 1878 and was one of the nation's oldest dailies -- one of the reasons I loved working there.

The Star was founded as a weekly in 1831 and the Chronicle was originally started in 1866 as the Colborne Express.

So it's an understatement to say these papers are steeped in history -- they are history for these towns. They're the soul of these communities, helping shape their identities and illustrating their character -- and setting them apart from their neighbours.

That means that the concerns about radioactive waste in Port Hope have a voice, an advocate, a champion in the local paper. And Cobourg's concerns about waterfront development or the brutal murder of a police officer, get top coverage in the Star.

These publications have been the papers of record in these towns for generations, providing local news that doesn't exist in any other fashion, and recording history as it happens, from a front line perspective.

The Internet can't offer that service, at least not now or any time soon. And a regional paper covering a massive area with a tiny staff, can't do it either.

My friend Pete, a photographer and reporter for the paper, says it makes sense to converge, and he's wondered for years why it wasn't done sooner.

He's right in a sense. Ad revenue is stretched thin even in good times, and amid the current economic downturn, businesses simply aren't advertising like they used to.

Also, the costs of producing three different papers are astronomical compared to producing just one generic version.

But that's the point -- a generic regional paper has no soul, and it can't represent a community like a small town paper, the type of publication that people have been subscribing to for 50 years -- that they feel they own as a result of that long term commitment.

That's something Quebecor, the media giant that owns all three of these papers, can't understand. To a company whose shares have fallen from $20 to .10 cents in a few years (according to my brother) all that matters is those savings represented on a piece of paper -- and in a way that logic is hard to argue with from a business perspective.

But it's easy to argue from a local angle -- when the paper you have spent your life reading, giving story tips to, or complaining about -- simply ceases to exist with little more than a quick goodbye as the paper puts a positive spin put on a tragedy.

Mostly this just makes me sad.

My hope is in the fact that there are still good people working for Northumberland Today. People like Pete, and Mandy and Ted, who do care about their communities, are invested, and are making the best of a decision they likely had little to do with.

Does this resonate? Is the death of these historic small newspapers a tough blow? Or is it just the inevitable result of progress and change? Am I making way too much of what is essentially a business decision? Let me know...