Image from Woman in the Moon (1929)

This silent German science-fiction film from Fritz Lang introduced the concept of counting backwards before a rocket lift-off. Lang was looking for a way to dramatize the launch and hit on the idea of having someone count down to zero. The count down procedure became commonplace in both films and novels and was later adopted by NASA for the real thing. This movie also explored the effects of zero gravity in space and accurately predicted a two-stage rocket powered by liquid fuel.

Leonard Maltin is credited with the shortest movie review. His review for Isn’t it Romantic? was simple and to-the-point, “no.” James Agee is supposed to have written off You Were Meant for Me with, “That’s what you think.” And Kenneth Tynan summed up the allure of I Am a Camera with, “Me no Leica.”

There’s even a website devoted to short movie reviews. The name of the site says it all: The Four Word Film Review. Examples of its four-words-or-less opinions include Groundhog Day (Monotony in Punxatawney), The Mummy (America’s first wrap star), The Ten Commandments (Runaway Jewry), and Citizen Kane (Publisher has last word).

What’s the longest movie ever? According to the Guinness Book of Records, it would be the aptly named The Cure for Insomnia (1987), which runs an incredible 5,220 minutes (87 hours). It doesn’t have a plot and was shot on video rather than on film, so it may not technically quality as the world’s longest movie. And no, I haven’t seen it, though I did sit through a 190-minute screening of Michael Snow’s The Central Region (1970), which also doesn’t have a plot.

Other contenders for longest movie include the 1,620-minute The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple (1928–1931), the 1,452-minute Grandmother Martha (1996), the 873-minute Resan (1987), the 773-minute Out 1 (1971), the 643-minute Evolution of a Filipino Family (2004), the 566-minute Shoah (1985), and the 511-minute War and Peace (1968).

What are the highest grossing movies of all time? They may not be the ones you expect — if you adjust the ticket prices for inflation. Here’s the top 10 list using adjusted gross earnings, according to Box Office Mojo:

1. Gone with the Wind (1939)
   $1,293,085,600 (unadjusted: $198,676,459)
2. Star Wars (1977)
   $1,139,965,400 (unadjusted: $460,998,007)
3. The Sound of Music (1965)
   $911,458,400 (unadjusted: $158,671,368)
4. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
   $907,867,700 (unadjusted: $435,110,554)
5. The Ten Commandments (1956)
   $838,400,000 (unadjusted: $65,500,000)
6. Titanic (1997)
   $821,413,700 (unadjusted: $600,788,188)
7. Jaws (1975)
   $819,704,400 (unadjusted: $260,000,000)
8. Doctor Zhivago (1965)
   $794,466,900 (unadjusted: $111,721,910)
9. The Exorcist (1973)
   $707,639,500 (unadjusted: $232,671,011)
10. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
    $697,600,000 (unadjusted: $184,925,486)

My Man Godfrey (1936) was the first film to be nominated for all four acting Oscars: Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Supporting Actress. Coincidentally, it was the first year for the two supporting awards. My Man Godfrey was also nominated for the writing and directing Oscars.

To this day, it’s the only film to be nominated for all six awards and not be nominated for Best Picture. And to this day, it’s the only film to be nominated for all six awards and not win any of them.

John Ford loved to shoot his westerns in Monument Valley, Utah. Those films include Stagecoach (1939), My Darling Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Wagon Master (1950), Rio Grande (1950), The Searchers (1956), Sergeant Rutledge (1960) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964).

So how did he discover this rugged and picturesque location? Here’s the story as explained by the Internet Movie Database:

“In 1939 there was no paved road through Monument Valley, hence the reason why it hadn’t been used as a movie location before (it wasn’t paved until the 1950s). Harry Goulding, who ran a trading post there, had heard that John Ford was planning a big-budget Western so he traveled to Hollywood, armed with over 100 photographs, and threatened to camp out on Ford’s doorstep until the director saw him. Ford saw him almost immediately and was instantly sold on the location, Particularly when he realized that its remoteness would free him of studio interference.”

Holiday (1938) is based on a play by the same writer (Philip Barry), has the same director (George Cukor), and features the same two stars (Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant) as The Philadelphia Story (1940). Yet the lesser known (and earlier) movie is actually the better of two.