And the early Oscar’s go to Lauren Bacall and Roger Corman …

While the Academy Awards won’t be presented until March, the first Oscar statuettes of the season were handed out Saturday night at a private, black-tie dinner in Hollywood. Breaking with tradition the Academy of Motion Picture Arts are presenting its honorary Oscars away from the televised ceremony, which might mean the televised version might run in a more manageable shortened time frame. However relegating the presentation of this award to a separate event seems wrong to me.

Anyway, Tom Hanks, Kirk Douglas, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, Annette Bening, Anjelica Huston and Quentin Tarantino are among those lines up as presenters for the evening, which will include 600 invited guests celebrating at the Grand Ballroom above the Kodak Theatre. The inaugural honorees will be Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman cinematographer Gordon Willis who will each receive Oscar statuettes, along with the winner of this year’s Irving J. Thalberg Memorial Award, producer John Calley. Calley’s producing credits include “Postcards from the Edge,” “The Remains of the Day,” for which he earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination, “Closer” and “The Da Vinci Code.” Willis is a two-time Academy Award nominee for “Zelig” and “The Godfather, Part III.” Bacall starred in legendary films including “To Have and Have Not,” “The Big Sleep” and “Key Largo”

Roger Corman is an interesting honoree. The 83-year-old B-movie king has made nearly 400 films as a director and producer, most of which are not memorable. But along the way Corman has given many young actors, writers, and directors the chance to make their first film. Among the list, swiped from the Huffington Post include: Francis Coppola (Battle Beyond the Sun), Ron Howard (Grand Theft Auto), Sylvester Stallone (Death Race 2000), Bruce Dern, Robert De Niro (Bloody Mama) Peter Fonda ( The Wild Angels), Peter Bogdanovich (Saint Jack), Martin Corcese (Box Car Bertha); and Jack Nicholson (Little Shop of Horrors).

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