Steve Cotler

Steve Cotler

Category Archives: Movies/Filmmaking

Sheiks on a Plane

Ali Balak Qatlar

Satif Luwi Qatlar
On a balmy Saturday morning in late-1978, two 30-something brothers boarded a Pacific Southwest Airlines flight in Los Angeles. As they walked up the outdoor stairway into the PSA jet, The two men looked suspiciously like Arab terrorists during a time when Arab terrorism was non-existent. They were traveling under their [...]

Avatar: Beautiful and Insidious

Hundreds of millions of people will watch Avatar. They will walk out with an overwhelming neuronal experience, some of it very bad…and I suspect James Cameron is unaware of what he has done. This is not about the film’s B-movie plot; I railed about that here.
Once the eye candy is consumed—and it is uniquely delicious—a [...]

Avatar: A Different Review

What a movie! I could not find a single negative review. Everyone thinks this is a fantastic film in every regard.
I don’t.
Avatar—no doubt about it— takes filmmaking to new heights. The visuals are without parallel, and it is worth the ticket for the unprecendented, 3-D eye experience alone. But the story…

Short Film Winner–Cannes 2008

Just watch.
I need not comment.
YouTube –  Historia de un Letrero (Story of a Sign)

Looking Back at Filmmaking

An elephant carries its baby for 22 months. I carried mine far longer. My baby was HEARTWOOD, a feature film.
I first came to Hollywood in 1975, where I starved writing four-minute radio dramas for Vincent Price ($86 each), then suddenly (it took four years!) I became extraordinarily successful at getting film projects produced: [...]