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Movie Review: 'Under the Tuscan Sun'
by Rich Brooks
10 November 2003
I recently went to see "Under the Tuscan Sun" not knowing very much about the film other than it was an adult story with beautiful Italian scenery, the kind of film best viewed on the big screen. It reassured me when I first entered the theater to see that I was not much older than the median age of the audience -- mostly middle-aged women but also a sizeable sprinkling of men, who, like me, didn't wish to spend their Sunday afternoon watching niggerball. This pleasant feeling faded fast, however, when this same mature audience started chortling at the insipid jokes and pratfalls in the trailer for an upcoming Adam Sandler "comedy." My sour mood persisted as I watched "Tuscan Sun" without once even forcing a laugh over situations this peanut gallery seemed to think were mildly amusing if not downright hilarious. I had been sucked into shelling out money to watch a chick flick -- a jew-safe one at that -- and I was not a happy camper.
UTTS is a fictional adaptation of Frances Mayes's similarly titled autobiographical work, in which the writer relates her experiences as an American expatriate living in Tuscany. Diane Lane as Frances is in every frame of the motion picture and portrays a recently divorced San Francisco literary critic who has been persuaded by two lesbian yuppie friends to take a bus tour of Italy. The lesbians, one of whom is of Vietnamese or other gookish ethnicity and is pregnant with "their" child, cannot now use their economy-class tour tickets and persuade Frances that it would be good for her emotional health to travel first-class in their stead. One little hitch: the tour is sponsored by the group "Gay and Away," and so our heroine finds herself on a bus surrounded entirely by fags. There might have been comic possibilities in this situation, but Frances understandably ditches this group at her earliest opportunity. You see, she espies a run-down villa with a "for sale" sign, and impulsively tells the bus driver to let her off. We now begin the real story of an American writer seeking romance and a new life in a foreign land.
As I watched Diane Lane attempting to renovate this decrepit property, I couldn't help but think of a 1970s Mary Tyler Moore. She has the same perky manner, complete with the grimaces and other facial twitches which made her popular and endearing to many viewers but were simply irritating to me. Lane even looks a little like Moore, and I kept expecting to see Ed Asner as Lou Grant pop up on the screen at any minute and say, "now, Maaaary." Her luck with men is a little better than MTM's, but not much better considering that she is surrounded by Italian dudes who are inexplicably attracted to her. Trouble is, Lane has "romance" on her mind while her spaghetti-bending suitors have shorter-term objectives.
Frances (now "Francesca") manages to hire four Polish workers to do her renovation, but they are not exactly licensed and bonded craftsmen. I couldn't put my finger on any single line, but I detected a subtle condescending attitude toward these Poles that would never be permitted with colored ethnic groups. Although the derogatory term was never used in the movie, "pollacks," like Germans and Appalachian Whites, are considered fair targets for ethnic slurs in jew Hollywood. They eventually get the job done, however, and we see the kind of radical transformation of this villa which could only occur on a movie set. It's especially amazing considering that Frances is supposed to be cash-starved from her divorce. After all, we are told in the opening scenes that she has come out on the short end of the stick under California Community Property laws. (Also an extremely unlikely occurrence, and I say this having studied these community property laws. Itz the man who invariably gets the shaft.)
About halfway through the movie, the very-pregnant lesbian gook shows up at Frances's doorstep in Italy. Her white lover apparently (a la Anne Heche) had second thoughts about becoming "a mother," and dumped the ugly slant-eyed dyke. Kind, loving, liberal Frances of course takes her in and prepares for the arrival of the gooklet. I thought for a minute that, unsuccessful in her attempts to find her prince charming, she would turn lesbian herself. She certainly hugged and slobbered over her friend enough to make you think so. Yeech!
Yes, the cinematography is beautiful and there are positive portrayals of traditional Italian culture. Unfortunately, the Italian families here depicted are among the earth's most endangered species, since Italy's White birthrate is now extremely low. And it is more likely today that the workmen would be non-White immigrants rather than Polish nationals. Such is the true state of affairs in this cradle of White civilization, rather than the sugarcoated romanticism we get in this Buena Vista offering. But at least we get a glimpse of a type of folk culture we must fight to preserve.
I strongly suspect that this tale has been "jewed" from the original Frances Mayes memoir. Screenwriter-producer-director Audrey Wells, whose previous directoral work has been mainly with Disney children's features such as "George of the Jungle," is described in her Yahoo bio as a "family friend" of yid director Michael Lehmann. Wells collaborated with Lehmann most recently in "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," and it seems that Hymiewood is one big interlocking directorate. Whether one particular actor or director is or is not a jew isn't really important, because there is always a willing goy on deck to carry out the agenda.
I was barely able to stay awake until the end of UTTS, and I would suggest that any reader wishing to see beautiful Italian scenery might better save his money and watch the Travel Channel.
RICH BROOKS
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