The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 49

Names D2 Go! Weekend D3 Comedy Notes D3 Annie's Mailbox D16 IJDCoJ Movie Directoiy D10-11 TV Radio D16-17 Comics D18-19 Deaths D20-22 Misc. Classified D23-24 Autos D28-32 Movies Music Nightlife The Boston Globe Friday, September 26, 2003 Success comes in twos for a punk-cabaret act and a raucous garage-blues band, both toasting new CDs mwrn Diane Lane (with Emiliano Novelli) gets a lift in "Under the Tuscan Sun." mm WW UVJ Lane finds her Jplace in 'Sun' By Ty Burr GLOBE STAFF Frances Mayes's Tuscany doubtless exists, but if safe to say that readers of her 1997 memoir, "Under the Tuscan Sun," as well as Mnvip the tourists who have flocked to Florence and environs in recent Review years, have someplace south of Disneyland in mind. In this Tuscany, there's a little boy carrying a bottle of wine on each corner, a pile of fresh focaccia on each table, and a surprisingly affordable villa for every weary soul. This is movie-Tuscany, in other words, and in turning Mayes's book into a shamelessly enjoyable turista fantasy, writer-director Audrey Wells hasnt just embraced it, she has decorated it, using warm hues, gorgeous views, and appealingly cluttered interiors. She assembles her stock Italian characters and lets them wink at their own thinness.

And in the middle of it all, she places Diane Lane, one of our most endearingly self-effacing actresses, and allows her to blossom as both character and star. In case you missed the point, Wells sticks metaphorical sunflowers all over the place. Not that she needs them, since Lane is sunflower enough as a Mayes who has been fictionalized from her own book into a SUN," Page D5 Fall TV Globe critic Matthew Gilbert reviews four new shows that debut tonight. D4 GLOBE STAFF PHOTO JOHN TLUMACKI Drummer Brian Viglione and singer-pianist Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls. T1 Faith' It's free spirit vs.

control freak in this tale of two bickering sisters. By Joan Anderman Art hurts when you're running a punk-cabaret globe staff duo. And we're notjust talking about the tuneful ex- The woman onstage doesnt look like a small-busi- plication of surgical blunders, statutory rape, and ness owner. Her legs are spread and she's pummel- bloody wedding gowns, ing a piano. The harried young businesswoman is Twenty-seven-year-old Amanda Palmer and 24- singing about a coin-operated boy, which would real- year-old Brian Viglione formed the Dresden Dolls in ly simplify her love life.

She is locked in a scary and 2001, a week after they met at a Halloween party and delicious gaze with the drummer, whose face is experienced a musical mind meld. With a live show painted white, and this helps her forget about the that fuses the theatrical whimsy of Kurt Weill and bookkeeping. DRESDEN DOLLS, Page D14 'The Handler' 4v Joe Panto- 'ri liano puts his 1 wise-guy 'V' i -n I i i I acting siuiis jA to good use JLj.ll this drama. 'Miss Match' Alicia Silver-stone is smart and sweet as a lawyer who likes to play Cupid. ii i t.r.n..!...

l.v rrVi 'Joan of God only knows where t' 17 VI this family headed. 1 senes is series is A'-. Opening today GLOBE STAFF PHOTO SUZANNE KREITER Drummer Tar a McManus (left) and singer-guitarist Margaret Garrett of Mr. Airplane Man. By Jonathan Perry GLOBE CORRESPONDENT Unwinding in the back room of an Allston bar, Mr.

Airplane Man singer-guitarist Margaret Garrett and drummer Tara McManus are talking about the stark, mystical power of Johnny Cash. The recently departed singer's ability, Garrett says, to lay bare the heart, soul, and authority of a song, "to communicate something so deep, without flash thafs something that I aspire to." Suddenly, as if to underscore her point, the Man in Black comes boomingfrom the bar's jukebox, his earthy baritone and hard-strummed guitar filling the near-empty room. Garrett and McManus sit up, slightly startled, and laugh. This is the way it's always been with Mr. Airplane Man, a rawboned garage-blues duo who have been one of Boston's leading rock 'n roll lights since they recorded their self-titled first album five years ago.

An air of fortuitous magic seems to hang, like an aura, over the heads of these two childhood friends from MR. AIRPLANE MAN, Page D14 "Autumn Spring" (PG-13), D10 "demonlover" (Unrated), D9 "In July" (Unrated), D12 "Under the Tuscan Sun" (PG-13), Dl Yi "Luther" (PG-13), D8 Yt "The Rundown" (PG-13), 06 Yi September 11" (Unrated), Oil "Duplex" (PG-13), D7.