from LA Weekly

Selling the Treasures of Book Soup’s Late Owner

By Gendy Alimurung Thursday, Aug 19 2010

 Much as he might have wanted to, when Book Soup owner Glenn Goldman died of pancreatic cancer last year, he couldn’t take his impressive 20th-century literature collection with him. Parts of it are being auctioned off as we speak.

“When you get a call about books, you hope to hear two things,” says Catherine Williamson, director of fine books and manuscripts at Bonhams & Butterfields, the house that is running the sale. “That the collection belonged to someone who follows the rare-book trade, or that it belonged to someone well-connected. Glenn was both.”

Known for high-profile signings that wrapped crowds around the block of its Sunset Boulevard digs, Goldman turned Book Soup into a model of a modern, major independent bookstore. Literary (and actual) rock stars sign there, as do artists, politicians, actors and porn stars.

While he certainly had a soft spot for the flashy guest author, Goldman did not mess around when it came to collecting. There are first editions, and then there are first editions. He owned, for instance, a first edition of James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It went up for auction in New York last month along with the choicest bits from his collection, including a first edition, first issue of Steinbeck’s first book, Cup of Gold.

The single most coveted book in the July L.A. sale was a signed copy of photographer Richard Avedon’s Observations, with commentary by Truman Capote. Williamson believes it will attract more interest than even the signed, first edition copy of Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

[ click to continue reading at LAWeekly.com ]

from LA Weekly

CONFIRMED: Historic L.A. Punk Venue Madame Wong’s to Close for Good in August

By Chris Martins

​This just in: West Coast Sound has learned that the historic Chinatown punk venue, Madame Wong’s, will be closing for good on August 14.

“It’ll probably never be a music venue again,” said Aquarium Drunkard’s Justin Gage, who broke the news via a Twitter post this afternoon. “So anyone that wants to get a sense of that old L.A. punk rock culture, get in while the getting’s good.”

This was actually the space’s second run as an intimate host to some rather high profile performances. Founded in the early ’70s, Madame Wong’s was originally a Chinese restaurant with a Polynesian dance floorshow.

Co-owner Esther Wong was eventually convinced to become a punk promoter as a way to drum up customers, and wound up playing host to shows by an incredible spate of performers, from the Ramones and Black Flag to the Police and Guns N’ Roses.

The restaurant was closed in 1985 after a fire, and the so-called “Godmother of Punk” passed away in 2005 due to lung disease.

[ click to continue reading at LAWeekly.com ]

from the LA Times

Citing security concerns, HARD L.A. canceled

July 12, 2010

In the wake of a teenager’s death at the Electric Daisy Carnival last month, the electronic-centric HARD L.A. concert at downtown’s Los Angeles State Historic Park has been canceled due to security concerns.

James Valdez, a state park ranger and the lead coordinator for events in the Los Angeles sector who was overseeing Hard L.A., confirmed that the July 17 date is no longer happening. Valdez said the Aug. 7 Hard event, also set for the park, was still planned as of this morning. “From what I hear, yes,” Valdez said when asked if the Aug. 7 was scheduled to go off.

Valdez said he received an e-mail from Gary Richards, the festival’s promoter, that stated the July 17 date was “postponed,” but he had no further information.

Documents from sources connected to a number of the acts scheduled to perform at the July 17 concert indicate that the promoters behind HARD L.A. have canceled the show in light of the new scrutiny and logistics demanded of large-scale electronic music concerts in Los Angeles.

The annual festival this year was to feature acts including M.I.A., Die Antwoord, Flying Lotus, Sleigh Bells and others.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]

Go Buy Some Books @ Skylight

from The LA Times

Wily dodges point to single culprit in high-profile Los Angeles heists

Thefts that depend on role playing and charm point to a single burglar being the likely suspect in heists of jewelry and cash from sports teams, a salsa band and a sugar baron in town for the Oscars.

By Andrew Blankstein and Richard Winton

For the “Rico Suave” bandit, the weapons of choice are charm, disguise and the power of persuasion.

In August, the man slicked back his hair and pretended to be a member of a salsa band playing the Greek Theatre. He talked a clerk at the Wilshire Grand hotel into giving him the keys to the band’s room and made off with $9,000. On his way out, he gave the clerk the band’s CD.

A few weeks later, he donned a Chivas soccer jersey and hugged members of the Mexican team as they left another downtown L.A. hotel, the Marriott, on a team bus. Then, posing as a member of the team’s entourage, he persuaded a hotel clerk to give him the team’s room keys, making off with $10,000.

Now, detectives are investigating whether the bandit has made his biggest score yet, at the Four Seasons Hotel on Oscar weekend.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]

from The Wrap

Variety Drops Chief Film and Theater Critics

Updated: Todd McCarthy and David Rooney are cut as the trade moves to trim costs

By Daniel Frankel and Sharon Waxman

The evisceration of Variety continues.

On Monday, the trade let go chief film critic Todd McCarthy and chief theater critic David Rooney. Longtime film critic Derek Elley also was cut, as was features editor/indie film reporter Sharon Swart, along with several copy and design desk employees.

In a memo to Variety staff, the trade’s group editor, Tim Gray, said all three critics have been asked to work as freelancers for the moribund trade.

However, McCarthy told TheWrap he has made no such arrangement, at least not yet.

“It’s sad,” McCarthy said. “It’s the end of something. You can say it’s the end, or you can say it’s the end of the way it’s always been done.”

Reaction from the film community was characterized by shock and dismay, with Roger Ebert tweeting, “Variety fires Todd McCarthy and I cancel my subscription. He was my reason to read the paper. RIP, schmucks.”

Still, in his memo, Gray insisted, “Today’s changes won’t be noticed by readers. Our goal is the same: To maintain, or improve, our quality coverage.

[ click to continue reading at The Wrap ]

from The Los Angeles Times

Art is the message on these billboards

The works by several visual artists will appear in an area bounded by the 405 freeway and downtown L.A.

James Welling, the creator of the blue diagonal piece billboard is a professor at UCLA. His art will appear in as part of a project by 22 visual artists.

By Scarlet Cheng, February 20, 2010

A grid of blue diagonals, the profiles of two men confronting each other, a series of colorful vertical stripes with an embedded phrase — these will be some of the enigmatic images flashing through our peripheral vision while driving in L.A. over the next six weeks.

They are three of the 21 visual artists’ billboards that have been going up in some of the most trafficked corridors of Los Angeles, part of a long percolating idea of Kimberli Meyer, director of the MAK Center for Art and Architecture at the Schindler House.

“How Many Billboards?” will be sited in the central part of the city, bounded on the west by the 405 freeway and on the east by downtown. (Maps are available at the Schindler House as well as posted on www.howmanybill boards.org.)

They were designed by 22 artists — one is a collaboration between the mother-son team of Martha Rosler and Josh Neufeld — most of them based in the Los Angeles area. Only a handful had done billboards before, but all were chosen by Meyer and co-curators Lisa Henry, Nizan Shaked and Gloria Sutton on their potential to realize outsized presentations.

The artists include James Welling, creator of the blue diagonal piece and a professor at UCLA; Jennifer Bornstein, subject of a MOCA Focus show in 2005; and Kori Newkirk, who was in the 2006 Whitney Biennial.

Several are known for their work in experimental film — Kenneth Anger, David Lamelas, Kerry Tribe and Yvonne Rainer, who is also a dancer-choreographer.

[ click to continue reading at the LA Times ]

from MediaBistro’s Fishbowl LA

‘Father of Rock Criticism’ Paul Williams Stricken with Early Onset Dementia

By Matthew Fleischer on Feb 16, 2010 09:20 AM

An interesting story in the San Diego CityBeat profiles legendary rock critic Paul Williams, who, after a serious bike accident in 1995, suffers from dementia. His condition has degraded in recent years, to the point where he now needs round-the-clock care.

Williams founded the legendary music magazine “Crawdaddy” in 1966, when he was only 17. CityBeat writer Sarah Nardi credits Crawdaddy as “the first publication to treat rock as a serious subject (paving the way for future mags like Rolling Stone), and Williams was the first to realize that the music was less a generational byproduct than a cultural catalyst.”

More on Williams from Nardi:

“He smoked his first joint with Brian Wilson while listening to the masters of what would become SMILE; he counseled a struggling Springsteen on musical direction (just before The Boss finally broke through with Born To Run); he and pal Timothy Leary spent a night with John and Yoko during the Toronto Bed-In-For-Peace, and Williams later rejoined the couple to sing on “Give Peace a Chance.” He bitched out Jim Morrison for leaving a book Williams lent him behind on a plane; he hitched a ride to Woodstock in a limo with The Grateful Dead; and all the while, Williams was writing–refracting the pure creative energy around him through a powerful critical lens.

Image credit, via CityBeat: “A portrait of Paul Williams painted by Drew Snyder, rendered from a photo taken by R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe.”

[ click to continue reading at MediaBistro ]

from NBC Los Angeles

Group to Rename Iconic Hollywood Sign — For a Day

Conservationist group near deal to buy land, replace sign

By JONATHAN LLOYD

The Hollywood sign might look different Thursday — as in, completely covered.

Trust For Public Lands, a nature conservation group, said it has reached a deal that would protect a huge swath of land above the  Hollywood sign from being developed into luxury homes. The group’s president, Will Rogers, said Monday that the Trust secured an option to buy the rugged 138-acre parcel for about $12 million from Chicago-based Fox River Financial Resources.

As part of its initiative to save land near the sign from development, Trust for Public Lands wants to cover the sign with a shroud that reads, “Save the Peak.”

The LAPD sent out a community alert to Hollywood residents — possibly because it might alarm people to find one of LA’s most recognized 450-foot-long landmark wrapped in a giant blanket. Tim Ahern, a spokesman for the Trust, said the group is still waiting for permission from the city and the Hollywood Sign Trust.

[ click to continue reading at NBC LA]

from The LA Times

Cruise night returns to Van Nuys Boulevard

After a 28-year break, car lovers meet once a month on Wednesday nights to show off their souped-up muscle cars, restored classics and lowriders in a scene familiar a generation ago.

A 1962 Chrysler Newport makes its way down Van Nuys Boulevard during Van Nuys Cruise Night. After 28 long years, cruising has returned to Van Nuys Boulevard. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

As the souped-up muscle cars, restored classics and lowriders cruise through the old Rydell Chevrolet lot on Van Nuys Boulevard, Reid Stolz takes stock of a scene that was familiar to anyone growing up in the San Fernando Valley a generation ago.

“Remember when we were young and the cops were old?” said Stolz, 51, watching an LAPD patrol car glide by. “Now the cops are young and we’re old.”

After a 28-year break, Stolz and other car lovers have brought cruising back to “The Boulevard,” though the drivers are now more likely to be middle-aged guys with graying hair and grandkids, driven by nostalgia rather than teenage vanity.

The cruising scene on Van Nuys Boulevard once was so popular and rowdy that it all but paralyzed the area and was seen as a menace by merchants and local residents. Police shut it down when turf wars and illegal races got out of hand.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]

from The LA Weekly

Bodhi Tree Bookstore Is Closing: Bad News for Buddhists

By Gendy Alimurung

Bad news for Buddhists and others seeking enlightenment: the Bodhi Tree Bookstore is closing. Owners Phil Thompson and Stan Madson informed their staff last Wednesday that the cozy Melrose Avenue shop, a nationally renowned and much beloved spiritual center, will be shutting its doors in a year’s time.

After some eight months of discussion, Thompson and Madson decided to sell the property to a local business owner who leases space to several other nearby retailers. The Bodhi Tree opened in 1970. Land values in the area have risen dramatically since then. Meanwhile, the business of selling print books has been on a steady decline. For years, real estate agents had been circling the Bodhi Tree like vultures. In the end, selling the property became a much more profitable option than continuing to sell books.

Thompson and Madson started the bookstore when they were in their 30’s. They are now both in their early 70’s. They were aerospace engineers who left a life of science for one of contemplation and meditation.

“Twenty years ago we felt like it was an expanding situation,” says Madson. “We were concerned the store was getting too big. We had a staff of 100. Publishing was expanding. Spirituality was expanding. But what changed was that the market became widely dispersed.”

Books on Wicca and Astrology and Native American shamanism used to be tough to find. But now every Borders and Barnes & Noble carries a significant selection of religious, spiritual and New Age literature. And what can’t be bought at a bricks and mortar shop can undoubtedly be found online at Amazon. For cheap.

[ click to continue reading at LA Weekly ]

visit the Bodhi Tree website

from Deadline Hollywood

R.I.P. Army Archerd

By NIKKI FINKE

Longtime Variety columnist Army Archerd died this afternoon at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center of a rare form of cancer. He was posting on his online column as recently as July 27th. But he was best known for his “Just for Variety” column in the print edition of Daily Variety from 1953 to 2005. And, long before Ryan Seacrest even held a microphone, Army was a fixture on the Red Carpet at the Academy Awards as the interviewer of record. Conventional wisdom had it that an Oscar campaign wouldn’t be successful without multiple mentions in Archerd’s column. Among his countless news exclusives was the tragic 1985 news that Rock Hudson had the AIDS virus. This, like everything showbiz, Army handled without sensation. Though Hudson’s publicist Dale Olson had tried to cover up Rock’s illness, Archerd learned of Hudson’s hospitalization in Paris and “wrote one of the most carefully written pieces I have ever seen,” Olson recalled to Variety when Army retired his print column. “That’s one of the secrets of Army’s success. He would do a story, even if it was a difficult personal story, and not write it like gossip. The message was there, but it was gentle. His column will really be missed. There is no way to replace Army Archerd.” I, too, thought Archerd one of the last true gentleman journalists working in Hollywood, and one of the most accurate. He was always sweet and supportive towards me. My condolences go out to his wife of many years, Selma.

Press-shy celebrities from Marlon Brando to Johnny Carson always sought out Archerd. According to a 2005 tribute to the journalist written when he retired as a print columnist, when Carson was about to celebrate his 25th anniversary on NBC in 1987, he told his publicist: “I’m not doing any interviews, because if I do one, I’ll have to do them all. But if Army calls, I’ll speak to him.”

[ click to continue reading at Deadline.com ]

from The Los Angeles Times

from The LA Times

Mt. Wilson’s famous, and besieged, observatory

Man once viewed the heavens by flickering firelight; now a raging blaze threatens a site where stargazing history was made.

Tim Rutten, September 2, 2009

There has been tragedy and loss aplenty in the fire ravaging the Angeles National Forest, but it has been particularly poignant — and, somehow, humblingly circular — to watch what’s probably the first natural element man subdued to his purpose threatening one of the great monuments of modern science.

The 101-year-old observatory at the top of Mt. Wilson houses some of the most productive scientific instruments of the 20th century, and it continues to play a cutting-edge role in various branches of astronomy, though the ambient nighttime light rising from the metropolis that now sprawls up its foothills makes deep space observation too difficult. Paradoxically, it was the Los Angeles Basin’s inversion layer — and the “stable air” it created — that originally made the mountain a perfect site for the great telescopes that revolutionized mankind’s notion of its place in the universe.

Beginning in 1919, the astronomer Edwin Hubble used the Mt. Wilson Observatory’s famous 100-inch Hooker telescope to prove that our Milky Way was but one galaxy among billions of stellar aggregations coming to life and dying across the universe. It was through his observations on the mountain that Hubble also realized that creation’s most primal impulse, the force of that singular event we now call the Big Bang, continues to echo through our universe, creating new distances where none had existed just a moment before.

[ click to continue reading at LATimes.com ]

from Lee Bailey’s EUR WEB

HERBIE HANCOCK JOINS L.A. PHILHARMONIC:

Jazz great named creative chair; begins two-year tenure in 2010.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic has tapped Herbie Hancock as its new creative chair for jazz, a post that oversees jazz programming at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl.

According to Variety, the Grammy winner is scheduled to begin a two-year tenure starting with the 2010 season. He will succeed Christian McBride, who has held the post since 2006.

[ click to read at eurweb.com ]

from FishbowlLA @ MediaBistro

Emmy Format Shift Angers Writers

The Emmy awards announced Thursday plans for a change in the format of the ceremony. Eight of the 28 Emmy categories will be pre-taped, in order to shave minutes off the lengthy program time. Two of the categories excluded from the ceremony are for writing, and given that there are only four writing categories in the Emmys to start with, There’s understandably some resentment. More than 100 television writers have signed a letter protesting the changes. James Hibberd at The Hollywood Reporterhas the letter, and further details:

We, the undersigned showrunners and executive producers of television’s current line-up of programs, oppose the Academy of Television Arts and Science’s decision to remove writing awards from the live telecast. This decision conveys a fundamental understatement of the importance of writers in the creation of television programming and a symbolic attack on the primacy of writing in our industry.

[ click to read full post at MediaBistro ]

from The NY Daily News

Sicko porn star arrested outside L.A. for stalking two teenage girls

BY SIMONE WEICHSELBAUM
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU

Wednesday, July 22nd 2009, 4:00 AM

A porn star once busted for allegedly flashing women on New York subways was arrested outside Los Angeles for stalking two teenage girls, officials said Tuesday.

California Highway Patrol officers cuffed Ken Hoyt, 44, at his Hollywood home on Friday after cops said he followed two young girls in his car, Officer Luis Mendoza said.

“They were in the vehicle running errands,” Mendoza said. The driver “tried to get away from his vehicle. She feared for her life. She knew that the person was up to no good.”

Hoyt - who starred in adult videos such as “Sexcetera” and “Big Gulp” - was charged with stalking and failure to re-register as a sex offender when he moved from New York to California, authorities said.

[ click to continue reading at the NY Daily News ]

from the San Jose Mercury News

Woman found dead in machine at SoCal food processor that supplies McDonald’s

Associated Press

Posted: 07/21/2009 08:31:31 PM PDT

Updated: 07/21/2009 08:50:12 PM PDT

INDUSTRY, Calif. — A 40-year-old woman has been found dead in a machine at a Southern California food processing plant that is a major supplier for McDonald’s restaurants.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives say the woman’s body was found early Tuesday at Golden State Foods in the City of Industry. Investigators believe her death was accidental.

No other details were given about her death or about the woman except that she was an employee.

The Irvine-based company has distribution centers across the nation. Its Web site says the company supplies McDonald’s and developed the sauce for the restaurant’s Big Mac in the 1960s.

[ click to continue reading at the SJ Merc ]

from The LA Times

Strapped city wants donors for Watts Towers conservation

11:33 AM, July 17, 2009

The Watts Towers may be a unique and symbolically rich work of folk art, but it is also a world-class money trap, vulnerable to earthquakes and the elements, and constantly in need of repair.

There’s been long-simmering discontent among some of the most intense admirers of Simon Rodia’s 100-foot-tall structure who say the city doesn’t spend nearly enough on its upkeep and criticize the quality of conservation work carried out by L.A.’s Department of Cultural Affairs.

Rodia, an uneducated Italian immigrant stonemason, labored on the towers alone for more than 30 years, starting in 1921, creating a triple-spired skeleton of steel and wire, fleshing it out with concrete and adorning its surfaces with colorful bits of glass, pottery, tile and seashells. It adds up to a national landmark that is, for many, an inspirational example of what one committed person can achieve.

“I had in mind to do something big, and I did,” Rodia said — as extensive a public explanation as he ever gave.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]

from Beck.com

Tom Waits x Beck Hansen : Pt. 1

Irrelevant Topics in a new section featuring conversations between musicians, artists, writers, etc. on various subjects, without promotional pretext or editorial direction. For the first in this series of conversations, the legendary musician and performer, Tom Waits agreed lend an hour of his time to talk about anything and nothing in particular. 

Here is Pt. 1 of that conversation.

Tom Waits: How you doin’?

BH: Good, I’m good.

TW: Are we up and runnin’?

BH: Yeah I think so. Hey, I wanted to ask you about being from Los Angeles. You grew up there…

TW: Yeah, Whittier, La Habra, Downey, that whole area. Yeah, Los Lobos, they’re from Whittier. So is Nixon. I remember Nixon’s market. He had his own family market.

BH: He was? For some reason I thought he was from the Midwest.

TW: No, California, and we used to get a visit every year from the Oscar Meyer wiener mobile, which was an enormous vehicle shaped like a hot dog. The driver was a Dwarf, and the wiener mobile would broadcast music while he sang the song “I wish I was an Oscar Meyer wiener.” He drew quite a crowd. Pretty exciting for a shopping center.

BH: That car is still driving around. I see it from time to time.

TW: You see the Oscar Meyer wiener mobile?

BH: I’ve seen it parked.

TW: They used to pass out little whistles that were about two inches long and it had three notes available. (Laughs.) Whittier lore.

BH: I was born in the McArthur park area.

TW: You remember when they drained McArthur Park, the lake? 

BH: I do, yeah…

TW: They found unbelievable things: Cars, human bones, weaponry.

BH: They should have done an exhibit.

TW: I don’t know why they didn’t. I thought that’s why they drained it.

BH: I’d always heard that when they drained the Echo Park Lake they found an amateur submarine.

TW: Oh, my God.

BH: I don’t know if that was lore.

TW: You mean a homemade submarine?

BH: Yeah, I think it was older too, from the early days of “home submarine building.” I don’t know if that subculture still exists?

TW: That was the East Kids.

BH: There’s so many different versions of the city.

TW: It is pretty international. Drive over here and you’re in Russia. Here, Indonesia, the Philippines, Central America. It’s pretty wild that way.

BH: I think of the city as a sort of mirage. If you look at pictures of the city a hundred years ago it’s just a bunch of weeds and desert dust. Its not really supposed to be here. I was always fascinated by the city it was meant to be. I guess it was a place created by developers. It’s not really like a city where some people roam around and then they find a good piece of land, and then they test it out for a while and make sure there is water so they don’t die, and then they decide to make a city. I started looking at some pictures…Beverly Hills was originally supposed to be called Morocco Junction. I started thinking, if they’d gone with that name we’d be in a whole other situation. I was wondering if there were any things that you remember? It seems like it’s shed its skin so many times.

TW: Well, cars choked everything. I know originally there was a red line that ran from San Bernardino all the way to the ocean and for 35 Cents you could ride a streetcar you know from…

[ click to continue reading a fascinating interview with these two geniuses ]

from the LA Times

from The Los Angeles Times

Hal Ashby, turbulent genius of the ’70s

AMPAS

A special Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences salutes Oscar winning film editor and director Hal Ashby on Thursday, June 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. The conversation will be followed by a screening of Ashby’s 1971 bittersweet romance “Harold and Maude.”

The late director’s brief run, including ‘Harold and Maude,’ ‘The Last Detail’ and ‘Coming Home,’ put him in the upper strata of filmmakers.

June 24, 2009

Hal Ashby is the cinematic equivalent of a supernova. The director’s work burned startlingly bright for a brief period in the 1970s — before his demons, including drug abuse, got the better of him, extinguishing his star shortly before his death in 1988.

Now, the director of such seminal films as “The Last Detail,” “Shampoo,” “Coming Home” and “Being There” is being rediscovered in a confluence of upcoming events (not to mention the biography “Being Hal Ashby: Life of a Hollywood Rebel” by Nick Dawson, which published in March). On Thursday, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences pays tribute with a screening of his eccentric 1971 love story, “Harold and Maude.”

Jon Voight, who won an Oscar for 1978’s “Coming Home,” will join Judd Apatow, Cameron Crowe, Seth Rogen, Oscar-winning scribe Diablo Cody and Variety editor Peter Bart at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater for a panel discussion and Yusuf Islam will perform two songs from “Harold and Maude” that he recorded as Cat Stevens. The academy will then screen Ashby’s work at the Linwood Dunn Theater beginning with “The Landlord” and “Shampoo” on Friday and continuing with other films through Sunday.

[ click to continue reading at The LA Times ]

from Shelf-Awareness

Rat Press: Hollywood Director Moonlights as Publisher

By day Brett Ratner is a Hollywood producer, director and photographer. At night, he moonlights as the publisher of Rat Press. “It’s a one-man operation,” he said. “I do everything, basically,” including editing books in his bedroom.

Rat Press had its beginnings nearly a decade ago when Ratner published Naked Pictures of My Ex-Girlfriends by Mark Helfrich. Several years later he wrote a book of his own, Hillhaven Lodge: The Photo Booth Pictures, with powerHouse Books. Ratner has now re-launched Rat Press, creating a new logo and signing on with Perseus Distribution. The company aims to publish works “from the most prolific individuals in film” that consumers “never have the opportunity to see in a theater” and in a variety of formats. Titles will include biographies, interviews, novels, scripts, photos and artwork.

“Brett is a passionate book lover, and he’s done a wonderful job of bringing the film and book industries together,” said Tyson Cornell, director of marketing and publicity at Book Soup in Los Angeles. Ratner, whose big-screen work includes directing X-Men: The Last Stand and the film adaptation of Thomas Harris’ novelRed Dragon, acknowledges that “there is definitely a synergy” between the book and movie markets and envisions a wide readership for the books. “They call movies that reach many audiences four quadrant movies,” he said. “These are four quadrant books” that will appeal to film students, movie buffs, pop culture enthusiasts and those who like reading historical books and biographies.

[ click to continue reading at Shelf-Awareness.com ]

[ click to visit Rat Press ]