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For Best Actor, as mentioned above, the winner is Sean Penn for his role as Harvey Milk in Milk. Over the past five years, the BFCA is five for five here, including a previous win for Penn in Mystic River. It's likely that Penn's very close to getting himself another Oscar, though Mickey Rourke or Frank Langella, from The Wrestler and Frost/Nixon, are close on his heels for their daring performances. And, hey, Rourke might just challenge Penn to a duel on the stage on Oscar night. That would be a night to remember!

This year's Best Supporting Actor winner is - no surprise - Heath Ledger for his performance in The Dark Knight. Can we just call this the performance of the year? Please? Still, a BFCA win is not an Oscar guarantee: the BFCA has only gotten two of the past five winners correct, though all their winners were nominated for Oscars. Among the Oscar losers are Paul Giamatti for Cinderella Man and Thomas Haden Church for Sideways. Hey, they were both in Sideways and both lost Oscars. It's an Oscar conspiracy!

This year's Best Actress winner is Meryl Streep...and Anne Hathaway. Are they starring in a new all-female version of The Man With Two Heads? No, wait, it's a tie! Yes, the actresses, who won for Doubt and Rachel Getting Married, got to share the award, something that is very unlikely to happen at the Oscars. It did happen - once - about 40 years ago, when Barbra Streisand and Katharine Hepburn tied in 1968 for Funny Girl and The Lion In Winter. So...don't bet on this happening in February.

This is even more the case because the BFCA has had many ties in the past; however, they are four for five in previous Oscar winners for Best Actress, missing last year with Julie Christie in Away From Her, though she was still a nominee. Who'd have guessed a tie, though? Of course, this is the group that gave a volleyball an award.

It's worth noting, though, that the last two BFCA ties, in 2003 and 2006, were among Daniel Day-Lewis and Jack Nicholson for Gangs of New York and About Schmidt, and Amy Adams & Michelle Williams for Junebug and Brokeback Mountain. All were nominated for Oscars, but none won. Spooky.

In a relative surprise, Kate Winslet won Best Supporting Actress for her lead...I mean, supporting role in The Reader, as opposed to favored actress Penelope Cruz. Winslet is likely to end up an Oscar nominee in the same category, despite her relatively unsupporting time onscreen. However, the BFCA is just as bad at predicting winners here as in Supporting Actor, getting only two of five winners correct, missing with that aforementioned tie among other mistakes.

This year's winner for Best Writer (meaning any screenplay, original or adapted) is Simon Beaufoy for Slumdog Millionaire. Beaufoy should be preparing for an Oscar nod, and may even win for Best Adapted. In the past, the BFCA has a good track record of picking Oscar nominees and winners, despite not having two categories. In the past five years, only the 2004 ceremony did not nominate both Oscar winners for writing, when In America, an Oscar nominee, won, and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King wasn't even nominated at the BFCAs, despite winning at the Oscars.

With the Golden Globes announcing their winners this week as well, the part of awards season that involves handing the shiny things out has begun. Start your Oscar pools, folks!

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