Movie Review
Lane offers everything under the sun
by Brian Abrams, Reporter

   She was a promising child actress.
   With her beguiling looks and innocuous charms, she was an amulet for mentors Sir Laurence Olivier and Francis Ford Coppola.
   Adulthood was on the horizon, and Diane Lane's films weren't selling.
   She lapsed into hiatus.
   Once her mature career began (three years later), Lane suddenly cascaded into a blunder of sexploitational mediocrity, and the lollypop stardom she once had was long forgotten.
   But over the years Diane Lane has ascended from the silver screen slums to recognition for her first-rate performances, and because of her past tribulations, she takes it with a grain of salt.
   From out of Am-erica's A-list actresses of this generation, Lane is the one with the most confidence and the least ego.
   And albeit her physical traits, that sultry combination of talent and modesty is what makes her such a natural beauty, and she can handle the glamour better than the rest.
   When her career resurged as an adult, she starred in the va-va-va-voom skin flick Lady Beware.
   Lane gave a more-than-worthy performance for a B movie.
   Her character, Katya, was a woman desperate for work during the day and fleeing from a terrorizing pervert at night-constantly on the move and frightened.
   Showing off her delectable curves, well, it was a sure sign that not only was Katya a little frightened and desperate but Lane, career-wise, was too.
   But now comes her greatest performance to date in Under the Tuscan Sun.
   Lane plays Frances Mayes, a San Francisco book critic.
   In the midst of a divorce and middle-aged crisis, Mayes shoves off to Tuscany, begins fixing up an old villa, eats a bunch of gorgeous pasta, makes out with handsome Italians on motor scooters and does not show any nudity.
   However, gentlemen, while Under the Tuscan Sun is skinless, and the plot is totally geared up for the Bla Bla Sisterhood, it's still worth a sitting.
   Lane's charm is more intoxicating than ever. And for a film that was made for cutesy-wootsy actresses like Sandra Bullock or Meg Ryan (who will surprise us this fall with her sexy thriller In the Cut), Lane's performance takes it to the next level.
   For a minute, you forget you are actually watching Disney at work for the Oxygen Channel demographic.
   While last year's performance in Unfaithful garnished Lane an Oscar nomination, I wouldn't be surprised to find her in the running yet again.