Smoothies and Jeremy Davies

Being both a finicky and a reluctant eater, most of my diet choices are based on either convenience or caprice. My recent relocation has taken me out of walking distance from my preferred burrito and pizza establishments and I've had to adjust accordingly. A winter infatuation with fruit cups paved the way for the reintroduction of fresh and frozen fruit into my life and combined with sudden access to a blender and the urge to eat as many bananas as I can before the bananapocalypse I now take at least one meal a day in smoothie form.

Semi-logical jump: I just wrapped up the fourth season of Lost, which is set on a tropical fruit filled island and guest stars oft gaunt actor Jeremy Davies as physicist Daniel Faraday (left, in Rescue Dawn). I have mixed feelings about Lost after the stellar first two seasons were followed by a flaccid third but Davies was a welcome addition to the cast and brought some much needed energy to season four.

Does Davies have the magic touch? A quick glance at his recent filmography - littered with choice roles in films such as Rescue Dawn, Dogville, and Secretary - seems to suggest that he does. Upon closer scrutiny, even Davies' roles in clunkers like Saving Private Ryan and Million Dollar Hotel provided watchable moments in otherwise iffy films.

"This Davies kid is money. I'm telling you. The numbers don't lie!"

Davies never garners any awards attention or makes any publications' lists of best/sexiest/banged most B-list starlets but is it possible that his presence on screen elevates whatever project he's currently involved with? I wish someone would come up with a way to gauge actor efficiency in much the same way that Hollinger's PER system offers statistical insight into a basketball player's actual value to their team.

Casting directors seem to be a subjective bunch who rely heavily on chance and instinct but I like to imagine them sitting around like GMs in the war room, pounding coffee by the gallon, scrawling on marker boards and pointing to the irrefutable statistical evidence that Jeremy Davies' arsenal of brooding glances and physical tics guarantees big time results no matter the size of the screen.