Antsy. I need to line up more film roles and so far I’m not seeing any scripts with a part for me. You’d think I’d welcome a chance for some down time, but I really live for days when I’m shooting a film.

My husband and I saw L’Affaire Farewell last weekend at the only theatre close by that shows foreign films. The Other Guys with Will Ferrell was the only other option, but we finally decided to wait to see that one at the second-run cheap seats. I enjoyed Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction, but not too sure about this one. Family members give us movie ticket coupons for Christmas because we see so many films, but we think long and hard before deciding something is “coupon-worthy.”

L’Affaire Farewell was suspenseful and quite good. I found myself thinking as I watched it that this is why I go to the movies : to marvel at beautiful photography, take pleasure at a director who knows his craft, enjoy a story that makes you think and leads to conversation after the lights go up. No crashing cars. No flying dragons. No teen vampires. There’s a shot in the opening of three Soviet soldiers in a truck. The way the light off the snow frames the face of one of these young soldiers is rather breathtaking. It made me wonder if you can even do that with CGI. It always seems a little flat to me, even in 3D.

Not everything in the plot worked, but Director Christian Carion did a very good job of keeping me on the edge of my seat. Toward the end one of the main characters and his family are making a break for the Finnish border – dead of winter, middle of the night. After hours of waiting in line, their car drives slowly through the two border gates, even as the call comes through at the Soviet guardhouse to stop them (okay, that’s a little clichéd, but it still works). The POV is inside the hero’s car, sharp focus on the foreground, the road ahead completely out of focus. You see a light seeming to come toward them. But is it a fixed light pole? A truck with soldiers to arrest them? You don’t know. Carion holds on that shot for a long time. I thought that was nicely done.

Saw previews for a couple of others we may see – The Concert and Mao’s Last Dancer. Putting the Pathé film The Illusionist on the Netflix list. You can learn a lot from watching a good performance.

Weather is miserable. Four more weeks of the tropics and then Washington will wring itself out, the sky will turn crystalline blue and we head into fall. In the meantime, I read in the shade at noon with a hot wind in my face, wondering what this San Diego girl is doing here.

(sigh) At least I'm having a good hair day.