Have been watching Academy Award wins/acceptance speeches from the 1970's and 1980's on YouTube (came across one recommended to me, and it becomes a downward spiral after that as most of you know), and am amazed by how much of my memories are tied into movies in one way or another. I have entire blocks of my childhood I cannot remember, but remember rooting like hell for Faye Dunaway to win for Network because that film knocked me on my ass as a kid, or when Nicholson got his for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Louise Fletcher did part of her acceptance speech in sign language when she won for the same film (my sister Carole, who passed back in September, took me to see that movie, it was very R-rated and I was 13 at the time - a much more innocent age, in 1975 - and the film both enthralled and devastated me). So, SO many of my favorite memories are tied into films, tied into my heart, I guess they and books were always a fat lonely kid's best friends and companions, growing up - the most poignant of all maybe being this acceptance speech by Whoopi Goldberg, for Ghost. I sat in front of the TV living every moment of her talking about growing up wanting to be up on that stage, filled with the desire to act and win an Oscar one day, and while a wonderful memory it's also brought home the fact that you just - don't - always - reach your dreams. O-blah-dee, O-blah-dah, life goes on ... but for anyone here who thinks I blather on too much about movies, please know that much of it is due to one simple fact: they are tied to my memories, and my heart, like family. In many ways stronger than family, because movies never leave you, and never betray you. Whenever you need to see one that fills your empty spirit again, it'll always be there.
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