In the lead-up to the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes are usually a pretty good indicator of who is on the road to Oscar glory. While the prizes are handed out by two entirely different voting bodies -- the Globes come from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, a collection of foreign journalists who cover the American movie industry, and the Oscars are awarded by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a collective of over 6,000 film professionals (actors, directors, writers, etc.) -- more often than not, if an actor or actress wins the Globes' lead dramatic acting prize, they go on to score the Oscar.

This year, however, both of the leading contenders for the Best Actress Academy Award -- Annette Bening and Natalie Portman -- took home Globes. In stark contrast to years past, a comedic performance is in very real contention for Academy's top acting prize, and since the Globes separate drama and comedy in the lead acting categories, all the Globes did was confirm something we already knew -- that this year's Best Actress race is pretty much a showdown between Bening (for 'The Kids Are All Right') and Portman (for 'Black Swan').