Best Supporting Actress

Nominees
Kim Basinger: L.A. Confidential (Oscar winner)
Joan Cusack: In & Out
Minnie Driver: Good Will Hunting
JULIANNE MOORE: Boogie Nights (ReOscar winner)
Gloria Stuart: Titanic

Sorta slim pickin's here: four girlfriend roles, and a fifth (Stuart) playing the same role, 75 years later, as one of the Best Actress nominees (Winslet). Cusack was OK as the fluttery, flustery girlfriend of possibly-gay Kevin Kline. Driver: nothing to say but Why? Basinger, playing a used, bruised, Lana Turnerish non-starlet in '50s L.A., got the award for showing a tragic subtext to Hollywood glamour, and maybe for the tabloid entertainment value of her marriage to Alec Baldwin. It was good work, but to push my contrarian thesis I'm going with Moore. She might not have been superficially plausible as the porn goddess Amber Waves but she poured jeroboams of sympathy and pity into the part. Moore gets extra credit for her next role, as an artsy-smartsy siren in the Coen brothers' The Big Lebowski. Not even nominated for that spectacularly hilarious turn? She was robbed!