HE to Gold Derby-ites: So are some of you guys feeling a little more supportive of Ethan Hawke‘s career-best performance in First Reformed? In the wake of his having won the Gotham Award prize for Best Actor, I mean.

For weeks ESPN’s Adnan Virk and I have been the only ones to predict Hawke as a Best Actor finalist in the Oscar race. The rest of you have been hanging back. I get that the four Best Actor locks are Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born), Viggo Mortensen (Green Book), Christian Bale (Vice) and Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody). But Hawke is absolutely the guy to fill that fifth slot. Wake up and smell the Schrader coffee.

Gold Derby-ites to HE: It doesn’t matter how good Hawke is in First Reformed. It doesn’t matter because A24 opened it last May, and that means we don’t give a shit. Period. Gold Derby hotshots will only support performances in films that have opened in the fall. We don’t care about quality or what the Movie Godz believe in. We live and breathe by our own code.