Lindsay Lohan has been sentenced to 90 days in jail — yes! suffer! — followed by 90 days of rehab in a lockdown facility of some kind. (I think.). In a pre-sentence statement she was tearful, submissive, pleading, plain-spoken. “I have to provide for myself…I have to work,” she said. “I’m not taking this as a joke. It’s my life, it’s my career.”

I love it when people who’ve lived upper stratosphere lah-lah lives get taken down and have to submit to Average Joe rules and regulations. It’s extra wonderful when they cry upon hearing the bad news, as Lohan did yesterday afternoon. I heard the news yesterday afternoon and saw the TMZ tapes last night. I always wanted to see something like this happen to Mia Farrow‘s Daisy Buchanan in the 1974 film version of The Great Gatsby, and now it finally has.

There’s also the matter of Lilo’s acting talent (which she has a fair amount of) and the fact that her addictions have been taking her down and that she really needed a combination wake-up and face-slap. She’ll do about three weeks (the average sentence on raps like this is about 25%), and plus 90 days of rehab. Speaking as the son of a lifelong alcoholic and a guy who had a vodka-and-lemonade problem in the mid ’90s, I know that’s a good thing. I’ve seen it all and I know that the lives of people who make constant whoopee always turn tragic — hurt careers, disease, early death, financial issues. That judge did LiLo a huge favor, and all she could say was “what?….what?”

Is Lohan more marketable now? Will raising the dough for Inferno be a tad easier? I would think so.