Milius – Film Review

Everything you’ll ever need to know about the movie writer and director John Milius. Meticulously, incisively and lovingly directed by  Joey Figueroa and  Zak Knutson, this is a film’s buff dream movie. OK, it’s just a documentary capturing old guys talking about the past and their golden heydays. Depressing huh? In one way, yes. In another, no.

It’s also a celebration of greatness, the greatness of the movie brat generation of the 70s, their idiosyncratic characters and the stupendous movies they made. The interviews of the old guys talking are mesmerising and the film clips almost edible they’re so deliciously tasty. There were giants back in those days and huge, grand movies. Now, of course, committees have taken over the movies, there’s blandness everywhere as executives run for safety, and the people are pygmies. We better enjoy Milius, Spielberg, Coppola, Lucas, Schwarzenegger, Eastwood and Ford while they’re still around and working, and toast all their old triumphs with a bit of classic movie watching.

Milius (born April 11 1944 in St. Louis, Missouri) was one of the first movie industry professionals to be a film school graduate, when there were only three film schools in the US and graduates were thought to have no chance of work in the industry.  He studied at the University of Southern California and in 1967 won first prize at USC School of Cinema-for his student film Marcello, I’m Bored before having matriculated .

He was associated back then with his peers Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas, who have clearly remained friends despite his difficult temperament. Boy can these old blokes talk!

Milius came to prominence in the late 60s and early 70s, when he broke into the industry by writing dialogue for movies like Dirty Harry then film scripts for American International Pictures. And then he talked his way into controlling things as director, notably with Dillinger, then Big Wednesday for big studio Warner Bros.

He made Conan the Barbarian with Arnold Schwarzenegger, but the right-wing gung ho teen movie Red Dawn (1984) did his career severe damage among the liberal Hollywood establishment. He’s filmed rarely since and fell on hard times financially, though he was having a welcome resurgence on TV (Rome).

Now, tragically, he’s a stroke victim, cruelly robbed of his talent to speak, but being looked after by his two grown-up kids and still admired by his friends, all of whom appear here, including ones like Harrison Ford who rarely give interviews.

A total, mould-breaking one-off, he seems to be the anti-Spielberg or Lucas, though conversely he is the exactly same in many ways as them. Just less willing to play the game, so less successful.  Whatever you think of the man’s character, full, complete respect must be paid to him as a film writer and movie maker. After all, he’s the man wrote the lines ‘Do I feel lucky?’ and  ‘Go ahead, make my day’ for Clint Eastwood and the U.S.S. Indianapolis scene in Jaws (1975) for Spielberg, though it was edited down in half by the star Robert Shaw. He was the mastermind behind Apocalypse Now, coming up with the idea, title and all its best lines (‘I love the smell of napalm in the morning’).

Though he considers himself as a ‘zen anarchist’, and just generally against everything that everyone else approves of, he really is a bit of a right-wing crazy,  as an avid gun collector and enthusiast. He serves as a member of the National Rifle Association’s Board of Directors. ‘I love the bomb,’ he says. ‘It’s sort of a religious totem to me. Like the plague in the Middle Ages, it’s the hand of God coming out indiscriminately to snatch you.’

Milius, who looks scarily a lot like John Belushi, is a friend of the Coen brothers and was the inspiration for their character of Walter in the The Big Lebowski (1998). John Goodman appears, briefly at the end, to opine amusingly.

http://derekwinnert.com/conan-the-barbarian-film-review-343/

http://derekwinnert.com/big-wednesday-classic-film-review-321/

http://derekwinnert.com/apocalypse-now-classic-film-review-344/

http://derekwinnert.com/the-big-lebowski-classic-film-review-288/

(C) Derek Winnert 2013 derekwinnert.com