Samuel L. Jackson Wants Approval

We were invited (thank you, Than) to attend Monday night’s American Cinematheque Honors as they bestowed their 23rd annual prize on Samuel L. Jackson at the Beverly Hilton.

The show, which will be broadcast on AMC December 9th, offered the usual: speeches filled with platitudes followed by far more engaging montages of Jackson’s work (though it was noticeably heavy on Pulp Fiction and The Man). But here’s a peek at some of the more interesting events of Monday’s taping, most of which will have to be heavily bleeped when it airs.

It is Samuel L. Jackson after all. Motherf---er is his middle name.

The Highlights:

-Justin Timberlake, with the collar popped on his tux, saying the “L” in Sam’s name stands for Love, especially man-love, before doing his best imitation of “I have had it with these [mofoing] snakes on this [mofoing] plane!” which drew one of the night’s biggest cheers.

-Vin Diesel (be still our beating heart; Vin and JT back-to-back was almost too much to handle) so nervous he could barely force out a coherent sentence in Sam’s presence.

-C3PO and R2D2 (OMG, totally the highlight of the night for our inner geek) showing their love for “Master Jackson.”

-Denzel Washington (who received the same award in 2003) showing up at all.

-Sharon Stone proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is bat-shit crazy with her tedious, ineloquent ramblings about how famous she is (of course she had to get that in there) so she felt it was okay to tell Jackson she’d just seen him naked on screen. The story went over as well during Monday’s ceremony as it must have when she did it the first time. Crickets. Followed by the gentle padding of men coming with white coats. Chick is coocoo, and not for Cocoa Puffs.

-George Lopez, who is funnier than we ever realized and was a shining bright spot of the night, saying, “We love Sam Jackson for Shaft, we respect him for Pulp Fiction and we forgive him for The Man…The Man! He had script approval on The Man. How did that happen?” Which prompted Jackson to yell from his seat, “Yeah, but I didn’t have director approval!!!” referring to director Les Mayfield whose previous work includes Encino Man and Flubber.

At least he didn’t call him a motherf---er.

Congratulations, Sam.