Let's say it's Sunday afternoon. You're watching basic cable, maybe even a movie station like TNT, TBS or USA and you get a commercial break. You start flipping channels but before you get too far you see a familiar image, or hear a familiar line of dialogue, or you simply settle on what looks to be something better than what you were watching before.

You cozy up to your cushion and somehow you know you've lucked out. What you're seeing isn't just any movie. What you're seeing is one of the all-time great tearjerkers. You know this because you've seen it before and you suddenly feel primed for the cause on a Sunday afternoon having already discovered there's nothing on that you'd rather be watching. The familiar images and dialogue settle in and before you know it you've, "Come to Laugh, Come to Cry, Come to Care, Come to Terms," Terms of Endearment.

It was the big screen debut of noted TV writer-director turned feature film writer-director James L. Brooks. Having chosen to work from Larry McMurtry's novel of the same name, Brooks successfully adapted the book to make a two-woman showcase from the lives of Aurora Greenway (Shirley MacLaine) and her daughter Emma Horton (Debra Winger). With his knack for character driven narratives, domestic settings and a focus on human emotions rather than on action-oriented pyrotechnics the film was highly entertaining and utterly at home on a Sunday afternoon spent watching cable television.

Filmed in Nebraska where Winger was involved with the state's then-governor, Bob Kerrey, the film concerns Aurora and Emma who live through as much heartache and joy as seems possible until Emma's death concludes their story. In between Emma marries Flap Horton (Jeff Daniels) and bears him two children, Aurora gradually learns to loosen up and enjoy a new love affair with next door neighbor, and retired astronaut, Garrett Breedlove (Jack Nicholson) and the two women form a bond of adult devotion from the fires of their blood connection.

The other main complications include the difficulty of Emma's attempts to stray from the over-protective shadow of her mother's judgment while Aurora, as this judgmental mother, tries tempering her behavior despite not ever liking her son-in-law. Always filling up these poignant struggles with a mixture of laughter and tears, Emma learns of Flap's infidelities but is later on allowed the selfless devotion of her own suitor, Sam Burns (John Lithgow), whose enthusiasm for her knows no bounds. Aurora also learns to let go and is ultimately forced to realize her limitations, though not for lack of trying, when Emma slips away from her and falls to the demon of cancer.

Built into the scope of the movie that takes place over several decades, part of the subtext concerns the more general passage of generations into one another through time. Put into evidence are the challenges of becoming what you most hate in others and the pratfalls of rearing children into being those kinds of people you most want to avoid. Paradoxes like these abound to confront the film's players with troubles and solutions but it's Aurora, most of all, who is the signpost of the times as an aging spinster.

With deep reserves of personal strength she acts as a buoy for other characters to rub against and spin away to form new meaning. There is the humorous turn of Danny DeVito as Vernon Dahlart, one of her suitors. There is her anger turned on Tommy (Troy Bishop), her grandson, for disparaging his mother as she lay dying. There are the tenuous first moments of lust and affection when Garrett begins courting her, grandstanding to gain her attention and offering revelation to earn her trust. Altogether it's a human display of people with lives worth celebrating in both the good times and the bad.

Throughout Terms of Endearment the cast give sharp, insightful and memorable performances that led to Oscar nominations for Lithgow and Winger and Academy Awards for MacLaine and Nicholson. It can be said no one player is more outstanding than the others in this ensemble production save for the fact that it really is MacLaine's showier role as Aurora that eventually walks off with the show. It's her journey from being a suburban housewife and single mom through her enduring maternity as penumbra to all that finally concludes the story with the crashing trouble of life's changes, its happiness and sorrow.

Eventually Aurora was reprised as the lone figurehead lording over Terms of Endearment's sequel, Evening Star. Such was her staying power that MacLaine resurrected the part although the second film was nowhere nearly as convincing as Brooks's debut feature.

When first screened for the Motion Picture Association of America Terms of Endearment was rated "R" for strong language. The rating was later reduced to "PG" when Brooks argued for the more general stamp on grounds that his film held a wider appeal than the adults-only audience suggested by an "R" rating. His refrain has been repeated when he's been confronted with "R" ratings for other movies that always find him lobbying for special consideration in light of how his films lack sex or violence and rely, instead, on literate scripts and human situations.

Of necessity, the argument goes, his films deserve fewer restrictions on the language used within them precisely because it's the use of words that his films are all about. The preference for speech makes his pictures worth seeing be they Terms of Endearment or As Good As It Gets and everything in between. This literary quality is also what makes Brooks's movies translate well onto TV screens since they don't require widescreen formats or overwhelming sensory experiences to enjoy them at full bore.

Just as it opened the hearts and tear ducts of many Americans, Terms of Endearment grossed some $108 million domestically and helped form part of the cultural mood. 1983 was a year in which many families found time to affirm their connections, if not because of the film then at least in part because of the climate it contributed to that made it easier to express love and affection. Likewise its main theme by Michael Gore became an instrumental hit playing the airwaves and flipping psychic switches of comfort from association with the movie.

Brooks's film, though, was not alone with its gift for entertaining audiences. The Academy Awards race of 1983 enjoyed three frontrunners for Best Picture with Lawrence Kasdan's baby boomer dramedy scored by a Motown soundtrack in The Big Chill, Philip Kaufman's NASA exploration epic based on Tom Wolfe's book of the same name, The Right Stuff and Brooks's own TV movie-of-the-week elevated through a credible source in McMurtry's novel, his own sharp adaptation and an all-star cast. The Dresser and Tender Mercies filled out the other picture of the year nominees yet it was the bad luck of one non-nominated film to avoid the Academy's recognition that rubbed a rather large cult audience the wrong way.

Barbra Streisand's directorial debut Yentl was released to the kind of clamor and excitement since reserved for any one of her seemingly endless farewell concerts. Its simple story about a young Jewish woman who disguises herself as a man to study the Torah was a box office success and an affirmation of American Jewry. Unfortunately for fans it wasn't nominated for any of the main Oscars save a supporting actress nod for Amy Irving, another nod for decoration and a nomination and win for the song "Papa, Can You Hear Me?"

Always looking for the soft underbelly of any year's Academy Awards success stories, Martin Scorsese released King of Comedy to moderate failure despite a critical following that continues to build. Starring Robert De Niro in a wonderfully nuanced role as a nobody with ambitions the movie catapulted into otherworldly status through the self-effacing participation of Jerry Lewis playing, of all people, someone very much like himself. To those who've seen the movie and enjoyed its story about a would-be comedian who kidnaps his idol for the ransom of performing his stand-up routine on live TV the film remains a must-see.

That it was ignored by the Academy stands to reason. Its pleasures are decidedly non-mainstream and it represent some of the most difficult ridicule of what being famous can be in a society that prizes fame above most other values, beauty included. Since it was the year for affirming families behind the loggerhead of Terms of Endearment, it's no wonder King of Comedy was swept under the rug.

Not that it should have won Best Picture mind you. I'm simply pointing out that there was more to 1983 than the MacLaine-Winger tear fest.