Our Top Ten Favorite Best Picture Winners: Of Course, The Godfather is Numero Uno

Greetings to our faithful blog readers in Bolivia, Honduras and Malta.....as well as those of you in Warm Springs, Virginia, where there is 15 inches of snow on the ground!


Here is yet another entry to our blog. Today, we look at our ten favorite Best Picture winners as we prepare for Oscar Night in which J.K. Simmons will very likely win a Best Supporting Actor nod for his role as a militant, megalomaniac band teacher in "Whiplash."

But, there should be some surprises and some close races. It is reportedly a toss up in the Best Supporting Actress race between Emma Stone ("Birdman"....) and Patricia Arquette (Boyhood).

The American broadcast of the Oscars will occur on ABC affiliates across the country, including WCVB-5 Boston and KMGH-7 Denver as well as around the world and even on planet Neptune:)


Here is our top ten:

1. The Godfather. 1972. Francis Ford Coppola

2. Annie Hall. 1977. Woody Allen.

3. Schindler's List. 1993. Steven Spielberg

4. All Quiet on the Western Front. 1930. Lewis Milestone.

5. The Godfather, Part II. 1974. Francis Ford Coppola

6. On the Waterfront. 1954. Elia Kazan.

7. Midnight Cowboy. 1969. John Schlesinger.

8. Lawrence of Arabia. 1962. David Lean.

9. One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. 1975. Milos Forman.

10. The French Connection. 1971. William Friedkin.

Honorable Mention: "The Last Emperor," "West Side Story," The Departed," "The Apartment," "12 Years a Slave," Unforgiven," "Ordinary People"......

http://www.oscars.com

http://www.wcvb.com

http://www.thedenverchannel.com

Friday Night Tweets: Terror Suspect and Major Storms

With so much chaos going on in Boston and the fact that a major rain storm struck our mid-Atlantic part of the country from Greensboro, NC, to Philadelphia, which got particularly nasty in Washington, DC, Baltimore and Annapolis (Maryland), we were more or less stuck inside.

We should point that image one, a recreational boat in Smith Mountain Lake, Va., (near Roanoke) was used because the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev, a son of Chechnyan immigrants, was hiding inside one such boat. The second image is because it is raining in Baltimore, where major league baseball's Baltimore Orioles play. And, the third image is for the four victims of the bombing and police shoot-out. Boston University student Lingzi Lu (her name has also been spelled Lu Lingzi) was among the three killed in Monday's blast.

So, here is a look at some of the more interesting tweets we saw tonight as a real-life episode of "The Fugitive" unfolded before our very eyes. Some tweets have been reworded to avoid confusion:

1) Boston Globe News @GlobeMetro: BREAKING NEWS: Police have taken the cover off the boat; the man believed to be the Marathon bombing suspect is inside.

2) Capital Weather Gang @capitalweather: "Wow, a gust of 70 mph clocked near Charles Co., MD, as storms roared thru.

3) Will Wheaton @Wilw: New York Post reporting, CNN confirming: D.B. Cooper is in the boat (not to point out the obvious, but this is a joke)

4) Boston College @BostonCollege: "Also thanks to all students and parents who tweeted appreciation. It did not go unnoticed."

5) Politico @politico: "Injured man (Jeff Bauman) who helped ID Boston suspects is uninsured."

6) Jake Updegraff @OnAirJake: "Poor Dzhokar Tsarnaev, apparently he never watched Disney movies or any movies at all. The bad guy always loses."

7) The Boston Globe @BostonGlobe: "BREAKING NEWS: Police appear to be preparing a robot with a camera to approach the boat."

8) Nicholas Kristof @NickKristof: "And our awareness of geography is such that Czech Republic has to explain that it's not Chechnya." (Chechnya is a part of Russia)

9) Lucas McNelly @lmnelly: "This is generally the part of the story where I start wondering if I could have gotten away."

10) The Fix @TheFix ("Washington Post" political reporter Chris Cillizza): "Serious Q: More reporters or more cops on the scene in Watertown?"

At the 9:30 Club in Washington DC- Cowboy Mouth

Since we periodically like to keep folks in the know as to who is playing at the hippest concert venues (we know of) within 200 miles of the swank hamlet of Boones Mill, Va., in rural Franklin County where we are blogging from on this very late Friday night (he's lying!), we thought we'd mention that the New Orleans rock band Cowboy Mouth will be at the famed 9:30 Club in Washington, DC, on Sept. 4.

The band, which took its name from a '70s Sam Shepard and Patti Smith stage play of the same name, are perhaps best known for their 1997 hit song "Jenny Says," but fans also like "Love of My Life" and "Everybody Loves Jill," in which audiences throw red spoons on stage.

The doors for the concert open at 8:00 p.m., and tickets are $25. The venue is located at 815 V. St. in the nation's capital and it seats up to 1,200 people.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.930.com or by calling 1-877-9849.

The web site urbandictionary.com is offering 9:30 Club trucker's hats for $19.95!

The club also hosts Big Head Todd and the Monsters on Sept. 23 and Teenage Fan Club on Oct. 2.

SIDEBAR: One of our favorite west coast bands Mates of State, based in San Francisco, is performing at The University of Utah on Sept. 17 before heading to New England for shows at The Paradise Rock Club in Boston on Sept. 26 and The Met in Pawtucket, RI, on Sept. 27.