Gene Seymour is a film critic who has written about music, movies and culture for The New York Times, Newsday, Entertainment Weekly and The Washington Post. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) On Saturday night, the Producers Guild gave its Best Picture award to "The Shape of Water" and that, in the immediate judgment of industry pundits and Oscar handicappers, pretty much ended the speculation for what wins the Academy Award for Best Picture in March.

So, of course, the Screen Actors Guild followed in kind by presenting its top award -- Best Cast in a Motion Picture -- to: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how life during awards season plays out: As an ongoing party, maybe sometimes as an amusement park, but rarely, if ever, as an annual phenomenon consistent enough to disclose how it's all going to go week after week, ceremony after ceremony, guild to guild.

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It bears repeating: The Oscars are, basically, a trade award conducted among those in the movie-making trade. Whether you like a movie better than another doesn't matter. The Oscars are awards judged by peers and awarded to peers whether they're sound engineers, set designers, writers, editors, directors, producers and, of course, actors.

The only Oscar everybody votes on, apparently, is Best Picture. So what have we learned this weekend?

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