I was fortunate to spend Thursday afternoon with a gaggle of my former work mates celebrating the 7th anniversary of  an uber-volunteer, Vere. She came to volunteer with us in her late 60s and has been going strong ever since! Well done Vere and congrats on staying so young and lending a helping hand to the cause of international humanitarian relief!

Imaginary Heroes
Written and directed by Dan Harris, Imaginary Heroes stars the ever-so-gorgeous Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch and Michelle Williams as members of the Travis family. The Travis family is thrown into turmoil when their eldest son, a high school (or it may have been college) swimming star, commits suicide. His death is the springboard for a whole host of melodrama with mom deciding to relive her ‘flower power’ drug days, father disappearing into a shell, and youngest son (whom the story revolves around) struggling to come to terms with abuse, his real roots in the family, and his sexual identity. This film is essentially a rework of the much better film Ordinary People. Where it ultimately fails is not with Sigourney or Hirsch’s acting (both are great) but with the plodding pace and the director’s decision to employ every melodramatic shtick ever invented in the film. As an aside, Daniels is just plain awful and I hope was simply miscast. Woefully self-important, this is a trite film trying to be something bigger and bolder than the stock Sunday-Night-at-the-Movie’s drama it really is. My rating 4 out of 10.

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