Intermission: 'Tuscan Sun,' 'Duplex' both pleasing movies

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician.

Diane Lane has starred in some very good romantic movies in her 25-year career, beginning in 1979 when she was a mere 14 year old. The touching _A Little Romance_ is a must see for folks with a penchant for love stories. While not really a sex symbol (although she is certainly sexy), Lane has an on-screen appeal that is believable and down-to-earth; she seems more like a real person than a movie star.

_Under the Tuscan Sun,_ based on the memoir by Frances Mayes, is a nice addition to Lane_s body of work. While the film has a few clichs and doesn_t break any new ground, the combination of a compelling story, sumptuous cinematography and Lane_s gifts as an actress is enough to keep the viewer engaged throughout.

Lane plays Frances Mayes, an author who discovers her husband is cheating on her. Because of California_s divorce laws she finds herself losing her house (to her ex and his new gal) and on her own, living in an apartment complex that caters to divorcees. The lawyer next-door cries all the time, the doctor upstairs passes out sleeping pills. When it_s discovered Frances is a writer, the landlord says that_s great. She can help everyone write their lonely hearts want ads.

It_s all a little much for her to bear.

Enter her lesbian pals, who have given up their plans to go on a _Gay and Away_ tour of Tuscany. They give Frances their ticket. She_ll be safe they say, _No one will hit on you ..._. So it_s off to Tuscany.

As fate (and screenplay) would have it, there_s a villa for sale and Frances has just enough money left from her divorce to buy it. The place needs a lot of work and she hires three Polish immigrants to fix it up.

She also meets her neighbors, including the rather eccentric Katherine, who was in a Fellini film years ago and still guides her life by the things the legendary director told her.

Frances finds romance, loses romance and then finds much more. All of the dreams she had when moving into her new house come true, just not in the exact way she had imagined.

Surely to be termed a _chick flick_ _ it was after all written and directed by women and features a woman as its central character _ I_d say the film should consider that a compliment.

_Duplex_

Has someone ever driven you so crazy you_ve contemplated killing that person? Come on ... admit it. Probably everyone (except Mother Teresa and Ghandi) has had this urge.

I can think of having it twice myself in the past month.

Director Danny DeVito takes this theme and turns it into comedy. _Throw Momma From the Train,_ _The War of the Roses,_ _Death to Smoochy_ and now _Duplex_ have all dealt with man_s darker impulses.

In _Duplex,_ the young couple Alex and Nancy (Ben Stiller and Drew Barrymore) have finally saved enough money to buy their own place. After looking at several, they settle on a building in Brooklyn. The one catch is this: The upstairs is occupied by a tenant. Because of New York_s rent control, they can_t ask her to leave, or even raise her rent. The real estate agent says she_s really sweet. She_s also really sick and really old. _My husband died in 1964. We were married 58 years,_ she tells them. So maybe she_s a little crazy as well. But she_s sweet.

When Alex and Nancy move in, sweet turns into annoying. Annoying turns into passive/aggressive. That, in turn, turns into utter insanity.

She plays the TV all hours of the night, very loud. She rehearses with her brass band of women as old as she. She complains about everything and manages to get Alex and Nancy ticketed by the police. Enormous Officer Dan advises them to watch their steps.

Matters get worse when the old woman destroys Alex_s laptop, which had the manuscript for his latest book, due the next day, with no deadline extensions.

So murder seems like the only way out. The film finishes with a series of misfired attempts to do the old lady in, and climaxes with a switcheroo that I didn_t see coming.

Ben Stiller is in the mode he was in for _Meet the Parents._ Drew Barrymore is sweet and perky and always fun to watch. The real star, though, is Eileen Essel as Mrs. Connely, the neighbor from hell. Essel is 81 and a real treat. She goes from sweet to maddening without ever missing a beat.

While not on par with _War of the Roses,_ DeVito_s latest is (darkly) funny and should please fans of his previous work.