The Times Union (Albany, NY), 18 March 2000, by Ellen Gray
'Best Actress' an E! first
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For a network that's attached itself like a leech to the 
awards-show circuit, E! Entertainment Television seems 
remarkably uninterested in taking the walk up the red carpet 
itself. 

The cheese puff of cable networks unveils its first made-
for-E! movie Sunday. 

''Best Actress'' (9 p.m. Sunday), an adaptation of a novel 
by John Kane, is no doubt one of those movies meant to be so 
bad it's good. It makes it only halfway through that tricky 
journey. 

And yet the formula's clear enough: Hire a ''Melrose Place'' 
refugee (Thomas Calabro), a supermodel (Rachel Hunter) and 
some WB and UPN supporting players (Anthony Stewart Head of 
''Buffy the Vampire Slayer,'' Elisa Donovan of ''Clueless'' 
and Jaime Pressly of ''Jack and Jill'') and put them 
together with an Emmy-winning director (Harvey Frost) whose 
credits include ''multiple episodes'' of ''Beverly Hills, 
90210.'' 

Then turn them loose on the Oscars, the Super Bowl of awards 
shows. 

Anyone who thinks black actresses are exaggerating the lack 
of roles for women of color in Hollywood should check out 
what the glorious Loretta Devine (''Waiting to Exhale'') has 
been reduced to: playing a boozy kleptomaniac singer-actress 
who's one of five women inexplicably nominated for the 
Academy Award for best actress. The others include Amber 
Lyons (Jordan Ladd), a young druggie with a trailer-park 
pedigree; Karen Kroll (Pressly), a former porn star now 
taking an interest in Shakespeare; Fiona Covington (Hunter), 
a classy English actress whose husband (Head) leaves her for 
Karen; and Lori Seefer (Donovan), a closeted lesbian who's 
willing to sacrifice her lover, Maria (Maria Conchita 
Alonso), on the altar of Oscar. 

Calabro plays Ted, a writer for an magazine, who's been 
assigned to interview all five contenders. It's giving 
nothing away to say that he's already dead -- at the hands 
of one of the interviewees -- when the story opens. 

By the time Ted's killer gets her comeuppance, as ''Best 
Actress'' draws to its histrionic close, you'll be thinking 
he's the lucky one.



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