Hollywood directors know how to construct an interesting scene, but in the age of 140-character micro-blogging, more than a few know how to construct a quality tweet, too.

From snappy one-liners to opinions on topical issues to major casting announcements or the occasional sneak peek of a movie in production, filmmakers have a lot to offer through social media.

TheWrap first looked at tweet-worthy directors back in August 2010; the 2013 version finds a few still on our radar, and a good number we've just recently caught up with.

Kevin Smith

@ThatKevinSmith

Director-writer, "Clerks,""Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,""Chasing Amy,""Red State"

Why follow?: Smith, also on our 2010 list, regularly offers his unique brand of commentary on all things Hollywood -- and hockey. Plus, Twitter is the director's favorite place to announce major news about his upcoming projects and his career. Last December, he tweeted that his "last cinematic effort as a writer-director will be 'CLERKS III.'" Last week, he announced he had started to write the upcoming film's script. It's a safe bet that there will be more exciting developments to come.

Sample tweets: 
"20 years later, this is the beginning of the end... http://instagr.am/p/WmhcOUxy_S/" 
"Don't believe the hype: Using hashtag #ClerksCast will NOT get you cast as an extra in CLERKS III. I'll let you know when it's casting time."

Be prepared for: Lots of promotion for his latest "Jay and Silent Bob" adventure, plus his AMC show, "Comic Book Men" and his weekly comedy show with KROQ radio personality Ralph Garman, "Hollywood Babble-On."

Paul Feig

@PaulFeig

Director, "Bridesmaids,""The Heat"

Why follow?: He's a funny guy who writes funny tweets, especially when live-tweeting an event like the Oscars. Or Animal Planet's Puppy Bowl. 

Sample tweets: 
"Release some of those kittens onto the field and let's have a real ending for this year's #PuppyBowl!"
"Is that a puppy cool down tub or is @AnimalPlanet just making soup? #PuppyBowlScandal"

Be prepared for: A whole lot of snappy one-liners, but not much discussion of anything else.

Darren Aronofsky

@DarrenAronofsky

Director, "Black Swan,""Requiem for a Dream,""Noah"

Why follow? Aronofsky has more of a sense of humor than his films suggest, best exemplified on Twitter by the pictures he shares. He's also unabashedly honest about things that really matter to him, like President Obama's State of the Union address -- a speech he's not afraid to admit made him cry.

Sample tweet:
"scared to ever walk near this again: pic.twitter.com/XxEsatiAdA"
"quite the #stateoftheunion. never cried before. and executive power threats on climate change! excited to witness this president rule."

Be prepared for: His thoughts on food he is currently eating, on television he is currently watching and very little mention of "Noah," that major movie he's currently making.

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Top of the mornin' to ya, folks!

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, we're taking a look at ten actors from Irish descent. And some may surprise you.

Whether hailing from Ireland or Hollywood, each of the actors on our list are magically delicious — but no surprise considering they were born with the luck of the Irish.

Okay, we'll stop now and let you get to the good stuff. 

10. Evanna Lynch

Birth place: Termonfeckin, County Louth, Ireland

Age: 21

Most well known films: Played Luna Lovegood in the "Harry Potter" series.

Irish ancestry: Born into a family of six in Ireland, Lynch often acted in school plays and attended a summer school for gifted teens in Dublin. After reading the "Harry Potter" books and becoming a fan, Lynch sent letters to author J.K. Rowling, who corresponded with Lynch during her two-year battle with anorexia at age 11 and 12.

In 2006, after auditioning for the role of Luna Lovegood at an open casting call in London among 15,000 other girls, Lynch was cast in the "Harry Potter" series at age 14. The actress made her on-screen debut in 2007's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."

9. Peter O'Toole

Birth place: Connemara, County Galway, Ireland

Age: 80

Most well known films:"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), "The Lion in WInter" (1968), "My Favorite Year" (1982) O'Toole has been nominated for eight Oscars. In 2008, starred as Pope Paul III on "The Tudors."

Irish ancestry: After being born in Ireland, O'Toole was raised in England, where he still resides.  

From the book "Fame and Obscurity":

Though Peter O'Toole remains an uprooted Irishman by choice, he leaves London and returns to Ireland every now and then to do some drinking, to play the horses at the Punchestown racetrack outside Dublin, and to spend some solitary hours thinking. 

8. Stuart Townsend

Birth place: Howth, County Dublin, Ireland

Age: 40

Most well known films: "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" (2003), "About Adam" (2000). Townsend made three movies with his former girlfriend of nine years, Charlize Theron: "Trapped" (2002), "Head in the clouds" (2004) and "Eon Flux" (2005).

Irish ancestry: Townsend was raised Irish Catholic by his professional golfer father and model mother. The actor began his career while attending the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin and later made his professional stage debut in 1994's "True Lines" which was a part of the Dublin Theatre Festival. Before fame, Townsend formed a theatre group with his friends in Dublin where they re-enacted a popular childrens' show.

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It's clear that enterprise tech is currently a hot area for investors.

But which startups have reeled in the most VC funds in a single round in the past 12 months?

We scoured TechCrunch's Crunchbase database to find out.

AirWatch raised $200 million right out of the gate

Company: AirWatch

City: Altanta, Ga

CEO: John Marshall

Founded: 2003

Total Raised To Date: $200 million in March, $200 million total.

VCs involved: Insight Ventures

AirWatch provides "mobile device management" software to enterprises. This is software that helps enterprises track and manage smartphones, tablets and laptops.

IO Data Centers raised $90 million to run big data centers

Company:  IO Data Centers

City: Phoenix

CEO: George Slessman

Founded: 2006

Raised: $90 millionin October, $90 million total

VCs involved: New World Ventures

IO designs, engineers and manages data center infrastructure for some of the world’s largest enterprises, governments and service providers.

Cloudera raised $65 millon to bring Hadoop to the world

Company: Cloudera

City: Palo Alto, Calif.

CEO: Mikel Olson

Founded: 2008

Total Raised: $65 million in December, $141 milliontotal

VCs involved: Accel, Greylock, Ignition, others

Cloudera helps enterprises install Hadoop, a popular big-data technology that powers some of the world's biggest and most popular websites.

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There's lots of speculation that the auto industry is the next field to be shaken up by technology.

Google's self-driving cars are one of the more visible facets in this area, but you don't need to buy a brand new vehicle to make driving an easier experience.

Companies like Automatic aim to make your car much smarter with a simple app/accessory combo. Plus, some apps on their own are enough to improve your driving experience.

Just load your phone up with some of these apps and take them for a spin.

Automatic

For $69.95, you can pre-order the device pictured to the right. It plugs into your car's data port (click here to see if your car is supported), and feeds data about your driving to a companion app.

The app monitors your driving habits and makes suggestions on how to get better mileage and improved performance out of your car. Automatic claims that "you can save up to a third on gas with only a few adjustments to how you drive."

Price:pre-order for $69.95

YourMechanic

Wouldn't it be great if a mechanic could come to your house and fix your car? YourMechanic gives you access to a network of mobile car repair experts who will make repairs on your vehicle at your house!

Price:free

GasBuddy

Gas is getting expensive, but this app will help you find the most affordable fuel within a reasonable distance. Using crowdsourced pricing data, GasBuddy directs you to your nearest bargain on gas.

Price: free

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National foreclosures increased by two percent month-over-month in February, according to RealtyTrac. They were down 25 percent from a year ago.

But RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist warns that "dangerous foreclosure flare-ups are still popping up" in certain states.

We drew on the report to highlight the 17 metros with the highest foreclosure rate.

Note: The metros are ranked by foreclosure rate i.e. 1in every X homes received a foreclosure filing. We picked the 17 metros with the highest foreclosure rate from all the metros measured by RealtyTrac.

Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor, Ohio

1 in every 392 homes received a foreclosure filing in February 2013

Properties with foreclosure filings:
2,434

Change from January 2013:
+48.41 percent

Change from February 2012:
+22.62 percent

Source: RealtyTrac

Louisville/Jefferson County, Kentucky

1 in every 386 homes received a foreclosure filing in February 2013

Properties with foreclosure filings:
1,443

Change from January 2013:
+58.57 percent

Change from February 2012:
+62.50 percent

Source: RealtyTrac

Akron, Ohio

1 in every 386 homes received a foreclosure filing in February 2013

Properties with foreclosure filings:
809

Change from January 2013:
+75.87 percent

Change from February 2012:
+30.48 percent

Source: RealtyTrac

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On Friday at a National Geographic sponsored TEDx conference, scientists met in Washington, D.C. to discuss which animals we should bring back from extinction. They also discussed the how, why, and ethics of doing so.

They called it "de-extinction."

There are a few guidelines for which ancient species are considered, and sadly, dinosaurs are so long dead they aren't in the picture. Their DNA has long ago degraded, so researchers are fairly sure that Jurassic Park will never happen.

But there are plenty of other animals on the table. The list of candidates is actually pretty long, considering.

Here are the 24 animals they are hoping to one day resurrect.

The Carolina Parakeet was the only parrot species native to the eastern United States. The last wild specimen died in 1904 in Florida. There are multiple reasons for its extinction, but a contributing factor was the demand for its colorful feathers to decorate ladies' hats.

This beautiful bird is the Cuban Macaw. It lived in Cuba and was the last species of Caribbean macaw to go extinct, due to deforestation from human settlement. The last ones died off before the 1900s.

The mythical Aurochs is not a myth at all actually. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle and lived throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa. They died off in 1627.

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Since St. Patrick’s Day is coming up on Sunday, we decided to celebrate the occasion by looking at the ads that have beer as its main theme.

If we’re going to be honest, some of the best advertising that has emerged over the last couple of years have come from beer companies and so, we take a look at the best ads that are out there.

Carlton Draught: Beer Chase

Parodying the chase scenes in action movies, this ad from Carlton Draught from Australia is original, funny and unique and rightfully got a lot of praise. It all starts when a group of robbers walk into a bar to celebrate a big job.

Andes: Camouflager

We’ve all experienced that problem were we have one beer left in the fridge and we’re worried that someone will take it. Andes came up with a clever solution to this problem which involved an elaborate disguise.

Guinness: Round Up Your Mates

A St. Patrick’s day themed ad from Guinness. This one sees a sheepdog rounding up a group of lads and directing them to the pub. All while avoiding various "obstacles" along the way.

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Any luxury yacht is going to provide a fun, relaxing experience onboard. But a great vacation requires some time off the ship as well.

The Allegria delivers. With a motor boat, jet skis, scuba gear, a kayak, snorkeling scooters, a diving board, and more, guests will have more fun off the yacht than on.

The 151-foot yacht, with room for 10 guests and a crew of 9, was built in 2004 by Dutch Hakvoort Shipyard.

At port in Fort Lauderdale, the Allegria is listed for sale by Moran Yachts, for $29.98 million.

The luxury yacht has three levels.

It's powered by two Caterpillar 3508B engines.

Together, they provide a top speed of 15 knots (17.2 mph).

Please follow Getting There on Twitter and Facebook.

Maybe I'm biased.

The Marine Corps actually taught me, among other things, photography. Paid me for it, in fact.

I served four years as a Combat Correspondent — a Marine photojournalist — and saw a lot of places from behind a lens. I've been out for some time now, but  I've noticed that every year these photographers in uniform get better and better at documenting America's Marines.

These images are from just the first three months of the year, and they're so good I had to post them.

Marines throwing down during a gunfight in Afghanistan. Combat is loud. Marines are louder.

Boom! Marines practice tactical breaching to keep their skills sharp.

Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles have become a mainstay of the Marine Corps.

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Steubenville, Ohio may finally slink out of the spotlight, after two of the town's high school football players were convicted of raping a 16-year-old with their fingers.

Trenton Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were adjudicated delinquent and could be in a juvenile detention facility until they turn 21.

The rape case drew national attention after the accused and their friends joked about the incident and showed a galling sense of impunity over social media. In January Steubenville was forced to launch a website to combat the perception that "the football team runs this city."

At one point Mays told a friend that coach Reno Saccoccia would make the charges go away: "I got Reno ... He took care of it and s---  ain't gonna happen, even if they did take it to court."

That's the kind of mindset that develops in a depressed Appalachian town where Big Red Football is the hottest thing around.

The population of Steubenville, Ohio peaked in 1940 at 37,651. Since then it has shrunk year after year to only 18,440 people in 2011.

The decline of the local steel industry has seen unemployment rise and incomes fall.

In this depressed town, one bright spot is the Steubenville High School Big Red football team.

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Google is most known for its incredibly powerful web search and Android mobile operating system.

But the internet giant is about much more than just searching and smartphones.

Some former and current Googlers have listed lesser known Google products over at answers site Quora. 

Google has products and services all over the internet that aim to inform users, make their lives easier, and more secure too. We had no idea that some of these existed. 

Google Mars is just like Google Earth except this program lets you explore the red planet.

Google Mars

Google Scholar is a search engine for scholarly articles. Scholar is pretty expansive, letting you access articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other web sites.

Google Scholar

Google Art Project is a site that lets users takes virtual tours of museums and art galleries, similar to Google Street View.

Google Art Project

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Curbed's Rob Bear reports that billionaire publishing heir/financier Dirk Ziff has recently listed his Katonah, New York mansion for $8.9 million. 

Ziff, who has an estimated net-worth of $4.4 billion, is the eldest son of the late publishing magnate William Ziff, Jr.

He and his brothers inherited their father's fortune after he sold 95% of his publishing business to private equity firm Forstmann Little for $1.4 billion. With that money started Ziff Brothers Investments, which invests in a variety of asset classes, private equity and hedge funds, according to Forbes.  

The Ziffs also provided seed money to hedge funder Daniel Och. In exchange, they got a 10 percent stake in Och-Ziff, which is now a publicly traded hedge fund.

Dirk and his wife, former Forbes reporter Natasha Bacigalupo, bought the manor in 2002 for $6.25 million, records show.

The stone manor was built in 1900.

It's located on 360 Pea Pond Road in Katonah, New York.

The home is 7,200 square feet.

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Investor Jeremy Grantham of GMO recently went on the Charlie Rose show and described his startlingly depressing outlook for the future of humanity.

Grantham thinks the number of people on Earth has finally and permanently outstripped the planet's ability to support us.

Grantham believes that the planet can only sustainably support about 1.5 billion humans, versus the 7 billion on Earth right now (heading to 10-12 billion).

So, basically, Grantham thinks most of us are going to starve to death.

Why?

In part because we're churning through a finite supply of something that is critical to our ability to produce food: Phosphorus.

Phosphorus is a critical ingredient of fertilizer, and there is a finite supply of it. The consensus is that we will hit "peak phosphorus" production within a few decades, after which point our phosphorus supply will inexorably decline. As it declines, we will be unable to feed ourselves.

Of course, ever since Malthus, a steady stream of doomsayers have predicted a ghastly end to the human population explosion — and, so far, they've all been wrong.

So why is a man of Grantham's intelligence adding his voice to this chorus?

And how real is this threat? Are we all going to starve? Is there any hope?

Humans have been around for a while. But for most of our existence, Grantham observes, our population was small and stable. Then it exploded.

Most of this explosion has come in the past 200 years--just as Malthus predicted. What Malthus did not foresee was the discovery of oil, commercial fertilizer, and other resources, which have (temporarily) supported this population explosion.

For the past 100 years, technology has made these resources cheaper to extract and produce, which has made them ever cheaper. Grantham thinks that trend has now permanently ended.

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As international leaders fear what Pyongyang may do beyond its borders, perhaps the biggest issue is what happens within.

North Korea operates a growing network of prison camps containing up to 200,000 prisoners in conditions likened by survivors to Nazi concentration camps. This atrocity gains little international attention, though the United Nations Human Rights Council is considering a formal inquiry for possible crimes against humanity.

Information about the camps is limited to reports from the few successful escapees, notably Shin Dong-hyuk, who told 60 Minutes about spending 23 years behind the wire.

Although there are no pictures from inside the camps, satellite images plus a set of illustrations supposedly done by a defector (the source of these images is unconfirmed) give a hint of the terror inside.

Warning: Some images are disturbing.

There are over 24 million people living inside North Korea.

But there are between 150,000 and 200,000 who have 'disappeared'. They live in brutal concentration camps throughout the country.

Source: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

Former prisoners say conditions are so bad that 20 to 25 percent of the prison population dies every year.

Source: Committee for Human Rights in North Korea

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Former Lehman Brothers chief financial officer Erin Callan disappeared from the public eye after the bank's demise in 2008. 

Now she's living a much quieter life in Florida with her new husband.

However, she's returned to the spotlight to weigh in on the work/life balance debate reignited by the release of Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg's book, "Lean In."

Callan wrote an op-ed in The New York Times and appeared in an interview of "Rock Center."

She has been warning other women not to lean in the way she did because she missed out on important relationships in her life and having children of her own. 

For a brief moment in time, though, Callan was one of the most powerful women on Wall Street. 

Erin Marie Callan grew up middle class in Queens, New York.

Callan's father was a police officer and her mother was a homemaker.  She was one of three daughters.

Source: "Too Big To Fail" 

She was competitive from a very young age. Callan was even one of the city's top gymnasts.

When Callan was 13 years-old, she was featured in the New York Times as one of the top gymnasts in the city.  

In high school, the football players would come in the gym to watch her practice, a coach told Fortune magazine.

She was so intense and competitive that she would practice the sport until her hands would bleed. 

Source: Fortune Magazine

She excelled academically graduating magna cum laude from Harvard.

Source: "Rock Center"

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Our homes need to get smarter and less wasteful if we really want to address big problems in our world like climate change.

Fortunately, some of the smartest minds on the planet are coming up with ingenious ways to make that happen.

SEE ALSO: Future Of Business

Nest: the self-learning thermostat

Self-programmable thermostat Nest can lower your heating and cooling bills by 20 percent. It does this by learning your preferences and automatically adjusting the temperature.

You treat it like a normal thermostat, turning it up when you're cold and turning it down when you're hot. It learns your temperature setting patterns, can sense the weather, and will automatically change the temperature when you're out of the house.

It was designed by Tony Fadell, who worked on some of Apple's most popular products, like the iPod and iPhone.

RavenBrick: A smart window that heats and cools your house

Eyeglasses have lenses that darken and lighten according to the light. Now, windows can do that, too.

The RavenWindow is a smart window for homes and office buildings that reflects the sun's heat. When it's hot, it darkens and blocks heat. When it's cool, it lightens and lets the sun in. It saves up to 30 percent on bills, without using any electricity itself.

Toto: smart toilets that eliminate toilet paper

To most people, going green in the bathroom typically means a toilet that uses less water. But to Toto, it means a toilet that gets rid of toilet paper.

The Toto Washlet is a toilet and bidet in one. By cleansing you with water, it reduces the need for toilet paper.

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Marshall Henderson is college basketball's greatest troll.

He taunts opposing fans, trash talks opposing coaches, and tends to sulk and swagger his way through games.

He is hated by some, but he plays with a passion and recklessness that is impossible to resist.

If Ole Miss makes a Cinderella run in the NCAA Tournament, there is no doubt Marshall Henderson will be the talk of the sports world.

Here's why he's the best college basketball villain in years.

He aggressively taunts opposing players and fans

He says his troll routine is intentional

Source: Al.com

He even went so far as to do Florida's famed Gator Chomp during Ole Miss's upset in the SEC title game

(via USA Today)

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Morgan Stanley has recently called for the return of the U.S. dollar.

In his new report to clients, Morgan Stanley's Adam Longson updates the firm's global commodities projections with this in mind.

As you'll see, it's not quite as simple as gold taking a hit.

Almost all commodities are expected to get more expensive as long as the global recovery picks up steam.

But every commodity will also be impacted by its own supply and demand dynamics.

Gold prices will continue to go up.

Projected 2013 price:
$1,773/oz

Projected 2014 price:
$1,845 /oz

Gold tends to move inversely to the USD. But there are periods in which that relationship can temporarily break down. The recent strengthening in the USD trade weighted index has not been accompanied by a downside breakout in gold, suggesting we may be entering another period of disengagement.

Source: Morgan Stanley

Oil will rise as the global economy heats up.

Projected 2013 crude price:
$109/bbl

Projected 2013 Brent price:
$123/bbl

Projected 2014 Brent price:
$118.5/bbl 

More robust economic growth in 2013 — indicated by a stronger USD — will mean stronger oil demand. That will put pressure on an already tight global oil balance. Demand growth may even break out of the tepid range the oil markets have seen since 2008, MS says.

Source: Morgan Stanley

Natural gas prices will be pressured by supply buildups.

Projected 2013 price:
$3.73/mmBTU

Projected 2014 price:
N/A

MS is bearish short-term on natural gas prices owing to large build-ups, but the market should tighten as this inventory is drawn down on coal-to-gas switching.

Source: Morgan Stanley

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Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein was at a wedding this weekend in Miami.

Blankfein's eldest son Alex, 27,  got married to fellow Harvard MBA classmate Cristina Ros, 26, according to the New York Times. Congrats to them!

Alex is expected to start as a consultant at Bain & Company in September. 

DealBook's William Alden tracked down a bunch of Instagram photos of the ceremony. It looks like a lovely weekend and we've included them in the slides that follow. 

The ceremony took place at the Vizcaya Museum and Gardens.

Source: New York Times

Rabbi Judy Kempler officiated the ceremony.

Source: New York Times

They look amazing.

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Facebook's Timeline feature — which arranges your entire history of photo uploads and status updates into a scrollable continuum  —has been around for more than a year now.

It offers advertisers a big, bright palette onto which they can pour the most creative imagery they've got. We highlighted those companies who were best at it last year.

When Facebook rolls out its new News Feed redesign, many of these photos and videos are going to appear even bigger. A brand's Timeline cover photo will become even more prominent in others' News Feeds.

Here are our top picks, from the world's biggest advertiser — Procter & Gamble — to niche labels such as J Brand.

SEPHORA uses any opportunity to talk about color. This image was part of its runup to St. Patrick's Day. Color and imagery are what counts in Timeline — more than video, frankly.

MICHAEL KORS: Simply exquisite. This is part of a Michelle Obama shoot for Vogue featured on MK's Timeline.

NIKE's page is the very model of a good Facebook Timeline. Huge pictures. Relevant product information. Lots of wide-screen embedded video, too. Most companies haven't explored video on Facebook, yet.

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