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Jackson honored by Cinematheque

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By BILL HIGGINS

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It's not often the key word at a fund-raising dinner is "muthafucka," but such was the case when Samuel L. Jackson was honored by the American Cinematheque at the BevHilton on Monday.

A number of speakers, including Justin Timberlake and George Lopez, worked the word into their remarks, but the strongest applause came when a "Snakes on a Plane" clip was shown with Jackson saying: "I have had it with these muthafuckin' snakes on this muthafuckin' plane."

The word did not, however, come up in remarks from org prexy Henry Shields and chairman Rick Nicita, who presented the first Sydney Pollack Award to Sundance's Geoff Gilmore.

George Lucas presented the nod to Jackson, noting that the thesp had requested a purple light saber -- becoming the only person to ever have one -- when he took the role of Mace Windu in the "Star Wars" series.

Earlier, Jackson had said getting an award like this one was "not something I set out to do," but he clearly enjoyed the evening -- calling out to speakers from his table, for example.