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. That’s the way it works when you’re in the lead – unless you’re Helen Mirren. Or Jennifer Hudson. Then everyone else is “just happy to be nominated.�

Tonight’s 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 Condon’s musical. (As if “Sunshine,� itself an arty spin on “National Lampoon’s Vacation,� is a work of art.)

As it stands – and has stood since it became apparent that Academy members aren’t bothering to watch Clint Eastwood’s “Letters From Iwo Jima� – it’s a wide-open race between “Dreamgirls,� “Sunshine,� “The Departed,� “The Queen� and the HFPA’s drama winner “Babel.� (I don’t 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 don’t discount Will Smith, whose “Pursuit of Happyness� is the most widely-seen – and politically inoffensive (provided you’re not offended by the film’s bland inoffensiveness) – of the presumed nominees.

BEST ACTRESS

Helen Mirren.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

Eddie Murphy’s 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, it’s going to feel like a punch in the gut if Martin Scorsese loses again. Can he? Sure. But with Eastwood out of the picture, who’s 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 Marty’s 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.