California

I worked a film shoot Sunday, which involved working from 9am to 11pm, getting to sit down for about 20 minutes in there, and then I woke up on 9 Monday to finish editing my project (finished with 3 minutes to spare, yeah I'm smooth like that), and then play it for my class. So today was a sleep day, when I finally got to remember what it felt like to rest my feet, and I got a chance to treat the sunburn I got standing outside all day (seriously, I got sunburned on my lips in 40 degree weather, I cry shenanigans). I'll tell more about the shoot when I'm done (rabbits! mayonnaise! other near death experiences!), but for now, I just wanted to comment on this story. Apparently Mischa Barton wants to leave 'The OC'. And I say, brilliant idea Mischa. And she says, sir, I'm going to need you to step back. It's amazing how much she looks like a threatening body guard. I gave up on 'The OC' about three months back, when Fox moved it to 9, against 'My Name Is Earl' and 'The Office'. I tried watching a bit of last week's episode when NBC tried tricking me into watching the pilot of 'Teachers' (which, despite the fact that it has Jenny from Alias, still isn't watchable), and now, Marissa is on drugs... again, Seth was on drugs, and now is all mopey, and breaks up with Summer for some horseshit reason, and Ryan is off being boring with some girl, who no one cares about. This show sparkled in it's first season, it was the funniest show on TV that just used the soap opera angle as a way to pay the bills.

But now it's just existing because it has to, it's just trodding along, with no where to go. They ruined it at the beginning of last year, where in the first episode where they introduced a slew of new characters who were... boring. And then they forced them on us for half the season, and when they were finally starting to grow on me (oh, look at Marissa's lesbian relationship, and there, Ryan's relationship with his kind of half sister, kind of), they kicked them all off. And they brought in Ryan's brother instead. Whoo! It all ended with Marissa shooting him, and me not caring (Logan Marshall-Green had the worst ends last season, getting shot by a 90 pound girl and then being tortured until he came out to his dad on '24)'. Now the show is just limping along, and if Mischa wants to leave, let her. The only reason she was enjoyable in the first season was to watch her and realize that she actually thought she was acting, and that she was doing a good job at it. But she wasn't, she just wasn't. You have the same reaction face for everything. Squinting your eyes a little more to show that you're hurt doesn't count. So if you want to go off into oblivion with Nicole Ritchie or Margot Kidder, or who ever is hip these days, knock yourself out. If that means the end of the show, even better, because it just means that the rest of the cast will be free to do worthwhile things. Adam Brody was in 'Thank You For Smoking' for about five minutes, but I can think of 10 of his lines right now, he's that good ("I'm going to impale your mom on a spike and feed her dead body to my dog with syphilis. It's an inside joke.")(Or, "That sand's not gonna rake itself, Hiroshi."). And he's going to marry Rachel Bilson, an actress who actually knows how to act cute, which is harder than you think. That's enough to get a career going, and then you can pick up more acting tricks as you go along. She has a movie with Zack Braff coming out this summer, 'The Last Kiss', so we'll see how it goes from there. Ben Mackenzie has been given so little to work with on this show recently ("Brood. No no, brood a little harder, but with softer eyes"), but in his few scenes in 'Junebug' show that if he has something to work with he can be really fucking good. Just watch the scene where he tries to tape the merecat special, or the looks he gives his brother at the church dinner. Peter Gallagher and Kelly Rowan? They've opened themselves up to be type casted as the best parents ever for the rest of their careers, which isn't a bad thing.

So go ahead Mischa, move on with your life. I can't wait to not hear more from you.