Kim Basinger's win for "L.A. Confidential"

Have you seen The Natural and The Door in the Floor? I think she's really very good in both of those films, too - very soulful performances.

And perhaps I'm thinking with my second brain ( ), but I really like her work in 9½ Weeks, too. It certainly isn't "Razzie-worthy," at any rate.

I wasn't following the race back then (I mean, I was five) but I dunno whether that win would be considered surprising since she won the Golden Globe and shared the SAG award with Stuart and also took home some critics' awards and multiple nominations. I guess the two of them were the main rivals for the Supporting Actress award that year, the classic case of the old veteran vs. a beautiful star.

I like her in the movie a fair bit although I don't believe she quite deserved that much recognition for it. But she's good!

I'm not particularly keen on the performance being a winner, but there are far worse that have won Oscars.

Still, it amazes me that she's the one to get recognition in the film for a solid performance where others were delivering amazing work (Crowe and Spacey, particularly).

No



Way

The film as a whole was outstanding but Basinger gave the worst performance in it. While she did look very pretty and glamourous, her 'sexy' acting was one-note and her confrontation scene with Crowe on the porch was awful. I thought Julianne Moore was by far the best of the nominees and it's a shame that the race came down to the two least deserving nominees (Basinger and Stuart).

Teenager me was all about Titanic that year, so even though I didn't love Gloria Stuart's performance and found it laughable when she drops the necklace into the ocean, which started all the discussion on whether she meant to do it or not because it didn't look like she did. I also loved LA Confidential, but I would have rather Crowe, Pearce, or Spacey get recognition. Plus, I wanted Titanic to break the Oscar win record. 

So I admit I was biased at that time and was hoping that Stuart would win. I agree though that the writing was basically on the wall already even with the tie at SAG which could be explained by Stuart being one of the founding members of SAG, and Titanic wasn't really praised for its acting at all except for Kate and Leo. For instance, I remember so many debates from Titanic fanatics who would argue with those that didn't like it that much that Billy Zane's bad acting was done on purpose back on AOL's message boards, lol. 

Plus, now that I'm just a little bit smarter and wiser, I know that an actress who is part of a large male cast has the advantage of not competing with anyone else in the film for the same category, so sometimes it seems like the Academy will just default to only recognizing that person. Not to say that Basinger didn't deserve to be nominated, but for a voter who loved both Crowe and Pearce but can't decide which one to throw their support to, at least by voting for Basinger, it's a way to make sure that the film gets recognized.

I think it also helped Basinger is that she had been around awhile and had a lot of ups and downs in her career. While I think she always had potential, I think that it helped that she surprised people with her performance. On the other hand, I don't think Stuart was on the level of someone like Lauren Bacall, who still lost, as someone that was considered a legend, so I don't think Stuart got that many votes for sentimentality or nostalgia. Cusack and Moore weren't in Best Picture nominees, and I think the nomination was seen as their reward. Same with Driver plus I'm not sure that voters would want to award Good Will Hunting two acting Oscars.