Get Shorty

The movie was such a hit that a highly anticipated sequel Be Cool is set to hit theaters in 2005. In the spirit of Danny DeVito’s Get Shorty character Martin Weir, below is a not-so-all-inclusive list of superlative "shorts" in the entertainment industry, followed by a list of the best movies about movie making to ever grace the silver screen:

Famous "Shorts"

The shortest Hollywood couple goes to Danny DeVito (5 feet even) and Rhea Pearlman (5 feet 1 inch tall) who are both shorter than their four Emmys, which, when stacked atop each other, stand just over 6 feet.

Judi Dench holds the record for shortest Oscar-winning performance on screen, with only eight minutes as Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love (1998). Sylvia Miles had the shortest performance ever nominated for an Oscar for her turn in Midnight Cowboy. Her role lasted only six minutes.

Shortest Hollywood marriages: Brittney Spears and Jason Allen Alexander’s marriage in 2004 lasted a whopping 55 hours. Second runner-up goes to Zsa Zsa Gabor, whose 1982 marriage to Mexican lawyer Felipe De Alba lasted all of one day. Third place goes to actor Dennis Hopper and Mamas and the Papas singer Michelle Phillips; the two were married for only eight days in 1971. Honorable mention: Carmen Elektra and basketball star Dennis Rodman were married for nine days in 1998.

At 91 minutes long, the film Marty (1955) has the shortest running time of any film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

The world’s shortest Oscar-winning acceptance speech came from Pierre Boulle, who won the screenplay award for Bridge over the River Kwai. His speech was two syllables, one word: "Merci." (The reason for the brevity was because he did not in fact write the piece – two blacklisted writers did.) Runners-up include William Holden and Alfred Hitchcock, both of whom said simply "Thank you" when they won their statuette.

The shortest movie title to be nominated for an Oscar was Z in 1969. (The award went to Midnight Cowboy.)

Tamara de Treaux was the shortest actress in a leading role. At 2 feet 7 inches tall, she played ET in Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial in 1982. The shortest adult actor in a leading role nod goes to Wen Wang, who starred in Agent 00 in 1981. He is 2 feet 9 inches tall.

The shortest adult actor to win an Academy Award is Linda Hunt, who is 4 feet 9 inches tall. She won the award in 1984 for her role in The Year of Living Dangerously.

The shortest living actor goes to Vern Troyer, the pint-sized sidekick in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. He’s 2 feet 8 inches tall.

Rarely do you come across a novel about novel writing, or a song about song writing, or a play about playwriting. But in Hollywood, movies about movie making are not only quite popular – they’re also quite successful. Here are some of the top movies about the movie-making industry, in no particular order:

Get Shorty (1995) Starring John Travolta, Danny De Vito and Gene Hackman. Chili Palmer is a Miami mobster sent to Las Vegas to collect on a bad debt when a casino boss gives him a better assignment – to track down a low-life, low-budget Hollywood producer. Chili quickly learns that his skills as a thug are quite adaptable in Hollywood, and he sets his sights on producing his own flicks. John Travolta won the 1996 Golden Globe for his role as Chili Palmer in the movie.

Singin’ In the Rain (1956) Starring Gene Kelly, Donald O’Connor and Debbie Reynolds. Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont are the "It Couple" of the Golden Age of the silent screen. It’s a good thing the screen was silent, because Lamont’s screeching voice is no match for her stunning, star-quality beauty. But studio execs know her fingers-on-a-chalkboard voice won’t fly as they try to make their first "talkie" movie, so they bring in chorus girl Kathy (Reynolds) to secretly dub her speaking and singing parts. Kathy wins the role and the boy’s heart, and of course, everyone lives happily ever after. The movie won the 1956 Best Musical/Comedy Golden Globe, and was nominated for the Best Picture Academy Award.

8 ½ (1963) Written and directed by Federico Fellini, starring Marcello Mastroianni. OK, we admit it: 8 ½ can be tough to follow at times, but the film offers a dramatic look into a director’s frustrations with filmmaking. Guido Anselmi is an Italian director who has lost all inspiration for his upcoming movie, but finds it’s too late to back out. Caught in a whirlwind of advice from his mistress, wife, producer and others, Guido ends up fleeing into his own dreams to escape the pressure, only to find inspiration to make a new film and face the world. The movie won the 1963 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

The Big Picture (1989) Starring Kevin Bacon, Martin Short and Jennifer Jason Leigh. Nick Chapman’s grad school film project wins a special prize, buoying his confidence to try his hand at Hollywood, but in the process, he is soon seduced by the glitz and ends up making concession after concession until his original idea is lost altogether. The film, written by Christopher Guest, focuses on how far young Hollywood hopefuls will go to "make it" in Tinseltown.

Ed Wood (1994) Starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker and Patricia Arquette. Who would’ve thought that a biopic about one of the "worst directors of all time" would become such a cult classic itself? The movie was a hit with audiences as it followed cross-dressing director Edward D. Wood, Jr., at the height of his success in the 1950s when he made Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster and Plan 9 From Outer Space. The movie also touches on Wood’s friendship with the aging horror star Bela Lugosi. Martin Landau won the 1995 Best Supporting Male Oscar for his role as Lugosi, an award that always eluded Lugosi despite decades of Hollywood work.

Bowfinger (1999) Starring Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham, Christine Baranski and Jamie Kennedy. Bobby Bowfinger is a down-on-his-luck actor/producer/ director who takes one last shot at fame and fortune by shooting his friend’s script. A famous producer promises to join on, but with a caveat: Hollywood’s top star, Kit Ramsey, has to be in it. But when Kit declines the role, Bobby, with the help of the cheapest team he could find in Southern California, shoots the film himself, with a starring role for Kit Ramsey – who does not even know he’s being filmed.

Swimming With Sharks (1994) Starring Kevin Spacey, Benicio Del Toro. A young Hollywood executive is moving up the ladder and takes on a job as the assistant to a bigwig producer. The catch: said producer is an assistant’s worst nightmare. He’s abusive, short-tempered and downright cruel. But the young exec has the last laugh when he kidnaps his boss and heaps the abuse back on him.

Gods and Monsters (1998) Starring Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser and Lynn Redgrave. Long-time Hollywood patriarch James Whale, who directed Show Boat, The Invisible Man, Frankenstein and The Bride Of Frankenstein, has long-since dropped out of the limelight when a stroke triggers flashbacks of his time in the trenches during the Great War. Once hard and unbending but now realizing his life is slipping away, Whale ends up befriending his hunky gardener, despite the disapproving eye of his housemaid, Hannah. The movie won the 1999 Oscar for Best Writing of a "Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium."

Adaptation (2002) Starring Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. You might need a pen and notepad to follow this story within a story. Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman has accepted a new assignment to adapt writer Susan Orlean’s The Orchid Thief into a screenplay, all of it based on the life of an exotic plant collector from Florida. Charlie’s easygoing twin brother, also a screenwriter, frustrates Charlie by banging out lightweight scripts while Charlie himself struggles to find clarity in the complicated flower story. This is presumably a (somewhat) true story, as Charlie Kaufman is the real life screenwriter of the movie. Chris Cooper won the 2003 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role.