With Emma “Bella Baxter” Stone having won the Critics Choice Best Actress award for her Poor Things performance, it now seems as if she stands a better-than-reasonable chance of snagging the Best Actress Oscar. Past Critics Choice votes have often been Oscar predictive so maybe. Here’s hoping.

This is even better than when Emma/Bella won the Golden Globe award for Best Actress — Comedy/Musical, because this time she was up against everyone else (Lily Gladstone, Carey Mulligan, Margot Robbie, et. al.) in the same category. It’s absolutely the right choice, of course, unless, like me, you were nursing special feelings for Mulligan’s Felicia Montealegre in Maestro, which led to turbulence and regret.

HE is not, shall we say, distressed that certain doubts and concerns about Gladstone’s Molly Burkhart performance were recognized and reflected, at least to some extent. Time and again I’ve said that Lily’s Molly Burkhart performance isn’t an appropriate Best Actress contender, considering that (a) Burkhart isn’t really a lead role and that (b) Martin Scorsese and Eric Roth‘s Killers of the Flower Moon script didn’t really give her any Best Actress-level scenes.

Not to mention the generally recognized view that quality of performance should always matter more than issues of identity.

Hearty congrats also to The Holdovers‘ Paul Giamatti for having won the Best Actor award.

Happy days are suddenly upon us!