Casino.

• Author: Rapping, Elayne

Well, what do you know? As Oscar time approaches, I can actually name--for the first time in memory--more than ten actresses cast in meaty enough roles to make the Best Actress and Supporting Actress races interesting and serious this year.

And what unlikely actresses most of them were. When you get past the two predictably stunning performances in predictably "uplifting" roles--Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County and Susan Sarandon in Dead Man Walking--what you have left is a list of highly unlikely actresses in far from uplifting, or even typically Hollywood, roles.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, brilliant once more in Georgia, is the only one of the bunch that one might have expected to be "Oscar-qualified." She is, after all, the designated "serious young actress" of the moment now that Jodie Foster has turned director.

But Sharon Stone? Nicole Kidman? Elisabeth (who?) Shue? Who would have guessed that any of them would have turned in hauntingly powerful, nuanced performances in such challenging, down-beat films as Casino, To Die For, and Leaving Las Vegas?

Nor were these the only remarkable and unexpected female performances. Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite, Linda Fiorentino in Jade--I could go on, and you probably could, too. There was, in truth, an embarrassment of riches this year for those of us who are perennially starved for the sight of powerful women on the big screen.

Of course, to feminists who insist on positive images, this list of portrayals must hardly seem heartening. Prostitutes, junkies, and cold-blooded killers are not exactly the role models we would choose for our daughters. But there was a surprisingly long list of "good-girl," "female-bonding" movies in which groups of mismatched friends saw each other through conflict and crisis, good men and bad, to a predictably soft-focus moment of sisterhood triumphant.

For a variety of reasons, we were offered an unprecedented number of well-meaning movies last year: more women in decision-making positions in studios and in the director's seat; more women seeing movies, and buying their own tickets; more female stars, desperate for decent scripts, producing their own movies; more money men willing to take risks on female-driven movies since Thelma and Louise, Little Women, A League of Their Own, and a few others hit pay dirt. Among the uplifting films were How to Make an American Quilt, Moonlight and Valentino, Boys on the Side, Now and Then, The Baby-Sitters' Club (a...