The shortened Oscar season has neutered the influence? of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association to the point of irrelevancy.

Still … the search for MEANING continues.

Category by category …

BEST PICTURE

Long the presumed frontrunner, Dreamgirls? has been taking its hits lately. Thats the way it works when youre in the lead unless youre Helen Mirren. Or Jennifer Hudson. Then everyone else is just happy to be nominated.?

Tonights win solidifies Dreamgirls ?place at the table. Certainly, if Little Miss Sunshine? had taken the comedy/musical category, you would have been reading scores of little-engine-that-could? stories and more about the perceived flaws of Bill Condons musical. (As if Sunshine,? itself an arty spin on National Lampoons Vacation,? is a work of art.)

As it stands and has stood since it became apparent that Academy members arent bothering to watch Clint Eastwoods Letters From Iwo Jima? its a wide-open race between Dreamgirls,? Sunshine,? The Departed,? The Queen? and the HFPAs drama winner Babel.? (I dont think much of Babel? its chances or its storytelling, for that matter.)

BEST ACTOR

Forrest Whitaker remains the front-runner. Sacha Baron Cohen maybe gets a nomination. (He should. His is the most artistically daring work in the category.) But dont discount Will Smith, whose Pursuit of Happyness? is the most widely-seen and politically inoffensive (provided youre not offended by the films bland inoffensiveness) of the presumed nominees.

BEST ACTRESS

Helen Mirren.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Eddie Murphys win for his energetic Jackie Wilson / James Brown soul man in Dreamgirls? confirms him as the man to beat. And if an Oscar is what it takes to remind Murphy that he can entertain without debasing his considerable talent, then, by all means, give the man the statue.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

Jennifer Hudson.

BEST DIRECTOR

God, its going to feel like a punch in the gut if Martin Scorsese loses again. Can he? Sure. But with Eastwood out of the picture, whos going to beat him? Stephen Frears? Bill Condon? Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, the least of The Three Amigos?? The Sunshine? newcomers?

No, this is shaping up to be Martys year at least, until they read first-timer Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris names for Little Miss Sunshine? and the world spins off its axis, hurls itself toward the sun and God repays the Academy for all those times Scorsese got ripped off.