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While Grazer's book is an extreme close-up, Cort aims for a macro shot: the evolution of the film business over the past 50 years, told through three generations of one family. The protagonist is AJ Jastrow, whose utterly incorruptible father worked at the studios in the '40s but whose example AJ is unable to follow. Working as a talent agent, screenwriter and producer, he accumulates more power but also a slickness and drive that alienate his family and activate his competitors. Though Jastrow is fictional, he interacts, Zelig-like, with real characters (from Adolph Zukor to Debra Winger). This conceit can be jarring, such as when Cort has Steve McQueen starring in films that never existed or when Jastrow has kinky sex with the late actress Romy Schneider, who then begs him for more.
Unlike Grazer's cheekiness, Cort's tone is utterly earnest, almost scolding. He laments the industry's emphasis on profit and the people for whom "the film business was born with the release of Star Wars and the founding of CAA." This is hardly untrod ground. He also takes to task contemporary personalities like onetime superagent Mike Ovitz and Disney chief Michael Eisner; settling old scores may be fun, but it's not much of a novelistic device.
Despite their different feelings about their industry, there are a few areas on which both authors agree: in Hollywood, few things are as important as a good table at Morton's--or as peripheral as a conscience.