Jodie Foster to Receive Cecil B. DeMille Award

Another "tradition" gone wrong.  The impending announcement of the Cecil B. DeMille Award allowed for a favorite parlor game for me in trying to predict who'd get it. The announcement's date had some consistency until late, as I noted in last year's blog entry. But it was never as early as November 1. So imagine my surprise when I see it announced today, robbing me of my annual "guess."  I suppose now the DeMille Award goes the way of so many other things, where I just give up and don't care.  Folks, people like tradition.  That's why the Oscars remain the #1 award as these things go.  I'm never blindsided by when the Oscar nominations will be announced. I don't have to search high and low to find out the date, or check daily. The date for the nominations is January 10. Now, this is a very different date than usual, but we got plenty of warning. I have no idea when the HFPA noted that the DeMille would be announced on Nov. 1.  I'm just not in the mood to check dates in October for the DeMille Award announcement now, because it's just too soon to think about Awards Season. So in future I'll just see it when I see it and forget the predix on that one.

The National Board of Review has set their date for their awards: Wednesday, December 5. Last year the New York Film Critics decided THEY needed to be "first" and announced before the NBR. Their date, as far as I can tell, hasn't been set yet this year. I'll worry about these critics group's dates later, but, again, the Oscars are the only ones year after year that get this right. I think I'm going to deal with these critics groups as an after-the-fact thing instead of my usual hunting for their dates craziness.  I'll check in daily with Indiewire.com to see who wins, then maybe Dec. 20 I'll comment on the lot.