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PAGE TURNERS Though many in Hollywood think books are merely bedside coasters, booksellers have become the cinematic protagonists of the moment. In You've Got Mail, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan play competing bookstore owners -- he the president of a mega-chain, she the perky keeper of a children's book boutique. By contrast, Roberto Benigni, in Life Is Beautiful, runs what might more accurately be termed a book closet in Italy during World War II. In the summer's Notting Hill, Hugh Grant portrays the proprietor of a travel bookshop in London whose life is changed when an American film star (Julia Roberts) waltzes in. And another summer film, The Love Letter, starring Kate Capshaw, features a bookstore owner who receives the titular piece of mail and searches for its author. Besides their tweedy, slightly flummoxed auras, what has made booksellers suddenly so chic? ''Reading is a more sophisticated form of entertainment,'' reasons Joe Siegel, general manager of Pages for All Ages, an independent bookstore in Savoy, Ill. ''And with the explosion of reading groups and [the addition] of cafes, bookstores are becoming more a part of the culture. I think studios want to tap into that.'' Next up: librarians. -- Will Lee
ETC. Is James Cameron seeing red? At the Feb. 3 premiere of a four-day-long American Cinematheque retrospective of his films in L.A., the director announced a possible new project. ''I am writing something on Mars,'' Cameron told the crowd of fans, which included his Titanic star Gloria Stuart. ''I see that planet as our next big push for exploration. It blows me away that the moon is the only planet we've visited.'' Guess now he wants to be King of the Universe.
