Milius (2013)

John Milius is one of those Hollywood writer/directors who never quite managed to become a household name, yet remains an iconic figure to film geeks and enthusiasts around the world. The films that he either wrote or directed are cult favourites, including Apocalypse Now, Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn. The man himself is a fairly notorious Hollywood figure, famous for pointing guns at studio executives and other ludicrous manufactured behaviours.

His career is the subject of Milius, a feature-length documentary directed by Joey Figueroa and Zak Knutson released back in 2013. It was originally intended as a much more personal and almost autobiographical film, with Milius on board as an active and collaborative participant. A 2010 stroke, however, temporarily robbed him of his ability to speak, and this left the film with a terrible hurdle to overcome in order to be completed. The end result is a fairly traditional sort of 'talking heads' documentary, with Milius an occasional contributor through older interviews and audio recordings. If you are a fan of his work, it's a fascinating and fairly well balanced profile. Sadly his poor health seems to have robbed the film of its chance to be something really special.