OSCAR, OSCAR!

My web site is dedicated to the memory of one of the movies' biggest fans ... Ted Larson. I was honored to call him a friend, and I am eternally grateful for the many afternoons and evenings I spent in his film classes in the early 1990's.

It was with great sadness that I heard the news that last week of November 2000. Ted Larson had died. I hadn't seen him in a number of years (I had left college rather abruptly in 1994), but it was still hard to believe. I first met Ted when I was preparing to register for my 1990 Fall Quarter classes at Moorhead State University in Moorhead, Minnesota (the college has since changed its name to Minnesota State University Moorhead). Moorhead is right on the border with Fargo, North Dakota. At the time, I was majoring in Mass Communications, but my underlying passion had always been film, ever since I was 11. When I saw Speech 280, An Introduction to Film History, listed, I registered right away. That fall, I would meet a man who shared my almost insane passion for the movies, and would in the process change majors and pursue film studies full time. I can still remember those first Tuesday and Thursday afternoons spent in the theatre auditorium of Weld Hall, listening as Ted took us through the history of film, and watching such landmarks as Citizen Kane and On The Waterfront.

It is to his memory that I dedicate this web site, where I celebrate film through the Academy Awards, and hopefully, with this dedication, I can provide a little bit of insight into a man you may not have ever heard of, but a man who touched so many through an undying love for the art of the moving picture. It's FADE OUT for this act, but at any time I'd like, I can respool that classic film, and be back in Weld Auditorium, listening to Ted talk about a classic film, then sitting back, watching the lights darken, and experiencing again the magic that is the movies.

- Jason O'Brien
March 2001