Golden Globe Ballots Due. (And Other Celebratory Reminders)

The members of the HFPA (The Golden Globes) have to turn in their ballots today with nominations announced on Monday. In the less celebrated corner of Precursor World the BFCA Critics Choice ballots are also due for the winners. My own votes are all over the place as I don't do lazy sweep voting but judge each category separately as one should. The Critics Choice Awards are this Sunday evening -- watch it live -- and the Golden Globe nominations are announced Monday morning. But movies, as events to celebrate, are more than just temporal things. You can celebrate anything you'd like across the time continuum via the happy things known as anniversaries and birthdays...

On this day in history as it relates to showbiz

1854 Alfred Tennyson published his famous war poem "Charge of the Light Brigade" - it would be made into a movie three times, most famously with Olivia de Havilland and Erroll Flynn in the Thirties.
1902 Margaret Hamilton, The Wicked Witch of the West herself, was born in Cleveland Ohio. She really should've been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar, don'cha think?...

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'If Ever I Would Leave You,' List-Making... It wouldn't be in November

On this day in history as it relates to the movies...

1859 Billy the Kid, future legendary outlaw, is born. He's been played in movies and TV by actors like Buster Crabbe, Hugh O'Brian, Paul Newman, Clu Galager, Val Kilmer, and perhaps most famously by Kris Kristofferson, BAFTA nominated for Pat Garret and Billy the Kid (1973)
1887 Boris Karloff, villainous movie icon (Frankenstein, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Scarface, etcetera) is born
1888 Harpo Marx is born

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Cecil B DeMille 4 Meryl Streep

by Nathaniel R

For those craving their dose of La Streep this awards season, rest easy: even if she isn't Oscar nominated for Florence Foster Jenkins in an already highly competitive Best Actress race, she'll at least grace the Golden Globes. She's a shoo-in for a Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical category for her off-key diva and she'll also be this year's Cecil B DeMille Honoree. Remember that every year at some point during the broadcast they stop handing out awards and celebrate a whole career with clips and speeches. On Sunday January 8th, 2017, that section of the night belongs to Meryl...

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Critics Choice Confusion: Earlier still even after that "We voted too early!" scandal last season

My apologies that I've neglected to mention one significant but oddly motivated date change for this forthcoming awards season. But it is definitely worth discussing.

You may recall that The Broadcast Film Critics Association (of which I am a member) more commonly known as "Critics Choice" lost several members last season due a very unethical move. The executives opted to ignore the balloting and just polled critics informally about whether they would have included Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015) had they seen it in time. I've yet to understand what their thinking was since, without changing all the voting, that one unethical change was clearly doing to do nothing for the ceremony or their reputation beyond harming it. The Star Wars cast was never going to show up since they were all busy and they weren't nominated in the Action performance categories designed to honor such things. 

Now after that "we voted too early!" disaster, this season they've moved the voting and the ceremony earlier still....

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On this day: Joan Allen, JCVD Movies, and Jacqueline Susann

On this day as it relates to showbiz history...

1858 Charles Darwin first publishes his theory of evolution. That one that caused Spencer Tracy so much trouble in Inherit the Wind.
1882 Tchaikovsky debuts his "Overture of 1812". It's still used in movies two centuries later in a truly diverse range of movies including The Iron Lady, Laurence Anyways, V For Vendetta and The Blind Side
1918 Novelist Jacqueline Susann is born. Her trashy best-sellers become hit movies and even turn Oscar heads: Valley of the Dolls (1967 best score nomination)  and Jacqueline Susann's Once is Not Enough (1975, best supporting actress nomination)
1931 Fright haired boxing promoter Don King is born. Sixty-six and a ½ years later Ving Rhames wins the Golden Globe playing him in a TV movie. Remember that sweet but odd moment when Ving Rhames invited Jack Lemmon on stage with him to share the award he had just lost for 12 Angry Men? King's been played by other actors too including Mykelti Williamson (Ali), Tim Meadows (SNL), and in forthcoming movies he'll be played by Reg E Cathey (Hands of Stone) and Keith David (The Last Punch)

I promise you there's incredible actressy stuff after the jump including a must-see clip...

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