HIT AND RUN

Rating:
Summary: SONY taken by surprise by Hollywood movers!
Review: A great read about Jon Peters and Peter Guber and the moving and shaking going on in the Hollywood movie industry. The book goes in to great detail about how they courted Sony, and ultimatly brought them to their knees. Mr. Peters and Mr. Guber are highly interesting and flamboyant personalities, and it sure makes a treat to read about them involving in relationships ranging from people like Barbara Streisand, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, Danny DeVito, Arnold, Heidi Fleiss to the Sony founder and they all have to break a sweat to keep up with those guys antics!!

Rating:
Summary: Hit and Run
Review: Fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hollywood dealmaking, mainly about Sony's unrelenting (and costly) desire to become a major player in Hollywood. This book points out how good business sense, contacts, timing and greed are what it really takes to get to the top in Hollywood, although not necessarily in that order - as long as you have someone like Jon Peters on your side.

Rating:
Summary: An essential book on Hollywood
Review: Halfway through this title, I thought it was a good read and I was happy I picked it up. At the end of the book I realized there is only one word for it: essential. Masters & Griffin seize on extraordinary story--Guber's and Peters's rise to executive status--and make it better. Filled with fabulous anecdotes, such as the celebration of an obese company vice president falling into a swimming pool while Peters cheered, this book is recommended for anyone who wants a primer on how business in Hollywood is, occasionally, done.

Rating:
Summary: FAST reading
Review: I read this book three years ago and I'm still laughing.

Griffin & Masters have created THE required reading book on everything that is wrong with Hollywood. They were able to tell the inside stories of multi-million dollar deals and make them understandable. Jon Peters, a barely literate hairdresser who happened to be friends with Barbara Streisand, and his business partner Peter Guber schmoozed their way through the 80s and were picked by Sony to run their newly acquired Columbia/Tri-Star pictures. Billions of dollars in losses later (Last Action Hero, I'll Do Anything) they got kicked out.

It is really an incredible story. If it was fiction, you'd think it completly impossible to believe, but it is all true.

Rating:
Summary: FAST reading
Review: I was totally engrossed in this book. Flew through it. I thought it was too cool that I found this in hardcover in... store! Best [$$] I ever spent!

Rating:
Summary: A different look at the Hollywood Machine
Review: Nancy Griffin and Kim Masters has written a interesting book about the two Hollywood Hustlers: Jon Peters and Peter Guber. The way they tell their side of the story makes it a wonderfull book. Just the part of the book, that tells to story og Sony and the purchase of Columbia and Tri-Star is worth every penny. You just sit back and wonder, how did they hustle their way all the way to the top.

To read something else about Peters and Guber, I've strongly recommend "Burton on Burton", where Tim Burton gives his personal view on them.

Rating:
Summary: A compelling tale of a great Hollywood tragedy
Review: The authors have done an amazing job of compiling an incredible amount of information and assimilating it in a well-thought out and informative manner. The story of how Jon Peters and Peter Guber were able to so completely screw Sony is unbelievable. Yet, Kim Masters and Nancy Griffin boil all the subplots down into a manageable and compelling story that is completely accessible. It isn't often that a non-fiction book reads like a novel. An absolute must-read for anyone interested in the film industry.

Rating:
Summary: As frightening as The Exorcist.
Review: This is one of those must-read Hollywood exposes, along the lines of "The Battle for Brazil" and "Indecent Exposure". It recounts the truly amazing story of how two small-timers in the business, Peter Gruber and Jon Peters, somehow rose to the top of the industry and headed Columbia Pictures for Sony...taking them on an incredible ride of excess and mismanagement. The real villan here though is Sony's seemingly endless series of bonehead moves during their purchase of Columbia, overpaying billions and putting their trust in two of the greatest flim-flam artists in Hollywood. Not only do they grossly overpay during the purchase, but they continue to pay and pay and pay...it really does boggle the mind. It's a ringing examination of the dangers of multi-culture dealings, and an entertaining, and truly frightening, trip through the Hollywood movie machine.