Best Supporting Actress has always been the category where the first thing the Academy asks itself is "How many hookers were in a movie this year?" This is not to say that those fine folks at the Academy only give Oscars to women who play prostitutes. Sometimes they give them to anyone with big hair, regardless of career. (ba-ding, chung!) I’m speaking, of course, of two recent winners, Marisa Tomei and Mira Sorvino, both of whom will always be remembered as "That Chick From My Cousin Vinny" and "That Chick From the Movie With the Really Big Bugs." [Ed.: Typo. I think you meant 'Really Big Jugs'] It goes without speaking that they both carry on a long tradition which evokes great memories of such illuminaries as Jodie Foster, Julia Roberts, and everyone from My Own Private Idaho. 

This year, however, the Academy has chosen only two nominees from the Big Hair/Whore category, these being Kim Basinger (who played a hooker in Chinatown- er, I mean L.A. Confidential) and Julianne Moore (who played porn star Amber Waves in Boogie Nights, which, oddly enough, did not feature the song "Boogie Nights"). Both of these women have had long careers in the bad movie industry. Kim Basinger’s string of bad movies are almost legendary for treading the line between crap and respectable cinema. She was in Comedy Central’s favorite movie (judging from repeated airplay) Blind Date. She cavorted with her husband, the elder Baldwin, in The Marrying Man. She was the eponymous character in My Stepmother Was An Alien. And, how could anyone forget, she traipsed around nekkid and provided solo pumping service in everyone’s favorite Mickey Rourke movie, 91/2 Weeks. [Ed.: Are we offending lovers of Wild Orchid?] Still, despite all this, she’s managed to save her career and appear as one of the few non-Australians in a critically hailed drama. Huh. I guess deciding not to do Boxing Helena really helped her out. [Ed.: Further evidence of Alec Baldwin's deal with the devil] 

Now, to be honest, Julianne Moore has not done all that much crap (sure, I know I said she had a long career in bad movies up above, but I lied. Suck it up). She did have to star with Hugh Grant in Nine Months, though, and that only adds to her potential as a Bad Hair/Whore nominee (see, because she plays a porn star in Boogie Nights and he once went to a whore, see, it’s funny, ‘cause it’s true and stuff, and- ehhhhh, forget it). Plus, she was in the abyssmally bad Benny and Joon. (Now I know that some may like that movie, but I’m sorry that I must tell you that you’re wrong and that it was truly, truly awful. Please report to your nearest re-education camp to get on with your new lives in the Offworld Colonies. Thank you.) Many of you may want to site her work in such films as Assassins and The Lost World, but those were not bad at the level of Benny and Joon. Quite frankly, because of her lack of truly horrible work (except for in about a dozen independent movies I haven’t seen, like The Myth of Fingerprints, so I can’t judge) she simply doesn’t have the stuff to make it as the Bad Movie Oscar choice. So There! Sorry Juli! [Ed.: Beg to differ. Can there be any surer path to Oscar success than being in Madonna's 1993 classic Body of Evidence??] 

Hey, there’s still a few nominees left! Well, I better get crackin’! Lessee, there’s Joan Cusack in last years favorite movie-glossing-over-what-I’m-sure-is-a-truly-difficult-subject- involving-gay-guys-who-we-know-are-gay-because-they’re-just-so-DARNED-NICE, In And Out. Well, she was also in Nine Months, which gives some strikes against her, and One Crazy Summer, but she’s also been in just too much good stuff, including Grosse Point Blank and Eight Men Out. She just doesn’t have the right (bad) stuff. [Ed.: No chance for her, considering her Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell tag-a-long casting situation with uber-talented brother, John. * Sniff * I still cry when I hear "In Your Eyes"] 

The next nominee is Minnie Driver, who, I feel I must point out, I have never seen in a movie. I stayed away from the three movies I know her from, Good Will Hunting (more on why later), Circle of Friends (ugh), and Hard Rain (alternate title: Moist Frontal Assault). She was pretty good in Grosse Point Blank, but everyone has a fluke every now and then. [Ed.: I thought you just said you'd never seen her in a movie? Eh, nevermind. Man, we are unprofessional] I just don’t have enough info and she’s not going to win anyway, so let’s move on. 

The final nominee is everyone’s favorite, Gloria Stuart, who just turned 394 last week. Let’s give her a big hand, everyone! All right, now we all know she’s a favorite of the Academy because: 1) she’s about 2 billion years older than anyone else, 2) she hasn’t worked in something like 70 years and everyone loves someone who comes out of nowhere (see: Kathy Bates, who was living in a trailer park before Misery) and 3) Jessica Tandy’s dead [Ed.: or so the Academy wants us to believe…]. Now I’m not saying she’s a lock, but she’s old, and knowing this is the last time this woman will probably be able to pee on her own, [Ed.: I'm a little uncomfortable with this -- let's say "make a pee pee"] let alone make an acceptance speech, will probably go a long way. All of these factors will also appeal next year to the "Rappin’ Granny" from The Wedding Singer (a proud Cornell Alum from the class of ‘35. Go Big Red!). Still, from the bad movie point of view, Gloria just ain’t got it considering she was in The Invisible Man and all. No prize for her. 

Rob’s Pick: I'm going to have to go with Kim Basinger on this one, kids. Sure, she didn’t make Boxing Helena, but she did make Cool World, and between that and 9 1/2 weeks, we got a weiner! (Besides, we’ve got to continue the hooker streak for as long as possible! This way I won’t have to watch "Cops" to see them, I can watch the Oscars!) [Ed.: Hey, don't bother with that -- just hang outside my apartment building with a trench coat on. I won't guarantee they'll be women, but I guarantee a good time!]