Milius

I just caught this on cable yesterday,I had seen the trailer last year and jumped at the chance to watch the movie,and I was not disappointed. I saw Conan in '82 and it just blew me away,I was 18 but I knew I was watching something different,this was not the usual fare,there was a philosophy present,it was wonderful. Back then info on writers and filmmakers was tougher to find but eventually I found out about Apocalypse Now which I had seen 3 years earlier,Jaws and Dirty Harry,all done by he same guy,I was a fan but didn't even know it! The movie covers his whole career,his friends like Lucas and Spielberg deliver very insightful interviews which endear me to the man even more,despite him holding many political views the very opposite of mine. But it is his towering talent,his passion and integrity which really shine through,the filmmakers did a fantastic job of getting to the heart of the man,and I found it truly inspiring and eventually moving. I cannot recommend the movie highly enough,anyone with a love of cinema owes it to themselves to seek this flick out,it's really one of the best I have ever seen on a film maker,full of life,passion and fire,just like Milius himself.

It's a fairly standard talking head movie with lots of clips and interviews. Does a great job of letting you see him and his work. Well done.

A look at the life of filmmaker John Milius, the greatest filmmaker nobody knows.

In this documentary, Milius is played up as the best writer of dialogue, someone who recognized how people actually talk. Again and again he is mentioned as the dialogue guy, and Sean Connery thought he was the only one who could write good speeches.

It is certainly interesting to see how close he was with George Lucas at USC, making "Marcello I'm Bored" (1967) together, and more or less being good friends since then. Not knowing much about Lucas, it seemed an odd match.

Milius came up through American International Pictures (though apparently not under Roger Corman) and went on to make "Apocalypse Now", "Jaws", "Dirty Harry" and more... Charlie Sheen loves him, which means something. The UFC is mentioned as connected, with Milius having helped create interest in the sport on the part of investors and television outlets, and John Goodman in "Big Lebowski" may have been influenced by him.

I didn't know too much about John Milius before I sat down to watch this documentary, other than that he scripted some great movies and was responsible for one of my favourite fantasy flicks, CONAN THE BARBARIAN. So this was an eye-opening journey for me, and one which was a lot of fun. It's a documentary mainly comprised of talking head footage which looks at Milius's career in Hollywood, his rise, fame, and eventual downfall, in a snappy and amusing way. The requisite clips from his films play out and although familiar they don't lose their charm.

My only real problem with this film was that some of the animated linking scenes were pretty silly but that's a very minor niggle. The sheer breadth and wealth of Hollywood talent that has been assembled here is impressive in itself, with Spielberg and Lucas nestling alongside George Hamilton and Schwarzenegger. A lot of them have very interesting anecdotes to share, anecdotes which when put together build up a good portrait of the maverick that is Milius. While he might not be quite the legend that the filmmakers seem to believe, this is still highly watchable viewing.

Milius (2013)

**** (out of 4)

Wonderful, all-star tribute to writer-director John Milius who is best remembered for the screenplay to countless classics including DIRTY HARRY, JEREMIAH JOHNSON, THE WIND AND THE LION, APOCALYPSE NOW, CONAN THE BARBARIAN and RED DAWN. This documentary traces his early days at USC and how he started working at AIP before moving onto some of the biggest pictures of the 70s and 80s. This documentary covers the wild stories behind the man and how eventually all of his politics became too much and he was pretty much thrown out of Hollywood. Directors Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson do a marvelous job at telling this story and much like the subject, they don't shy away from telling the truth about Milius. They don't shy away from some of his outrageous antics and they also aren't afraid to ask a pretty basic question about why such a talent just isn't being used as much. The film contains a terrific line up of people being interviewed including the likes of Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Schrader, Stone, Lucas, Dreyfuss, Sam Elliott, Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Ed O'Neil, Stallone, Schwarzenegger and countless others. It's obvious that all of these people hold the subject in high esteem and after watching this documentary I'm sure you will do. The documentary tells a great story and the way it's constructed is another major plus. The interviews are all terrific but we also get plenty of wonderful clips from the movies themselves. There's no doubt that after watching this thing you're going to want to go out and see the movies.