Mom's Birthday

MomsBday2005, originally uploaded by Purplex.

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It's Mom's birthday today, 30th of April, and I hereby promise myself that the two pictures I took of her so far, I'll post online TODAY. Let's see if I do it. Mom looks absolutely beautiful. Some days, I look at her face, and see sagging skin that may lend itself to wrinkles, and I feel fear that she will grow old, but at 50+ she is remarkably young at both heart and in body.

Last night I saw Brett Ratner's Red Dragon, based on the Lecter trilogy, featuring Anthony Hopkins as the insane yet lucid genius, a cannibal and a doctor, Hannibal Lecter. I saw Anthony Hopkins' interview, and he said he was chosen because of a character of a doctor that he played, who was 'caring and sharing'. When he asked why he was cast as Lecter based on the impression left by a performance that could not be more distant, he was told that because he was a 'humanitarian'.

It's the classic joke, and I just got it now myself:
"If vegetarians eat vegetables, what do humanitarians eat?"

Did I mention I am now in love with Hopkins? It happened right after the opening scene; where he is attending a concert, and the camera closes up on his face, to record his wink, him motioning a gunshot, and then this sly-wry smile. Catches the heart! As one of the interviewees in the DVD says it was "delicious", his face records so many impressions, it is just a pleasure to watch him, immensely "satisfying". And while his character feeds others humans, the audience relishes his performance. So, I went online to learn more about him, and some of it say he is or was pompous. I remember him on Oprah calling Gwyneth Paltrow 'one of the best actresses (if not the best) that he had worked with', and that was around the time her father passed away. She suspected the veracity of the praise, and said that coming from him it was certainly high praise. Now if I could only see him someday :).