John Milius
The silent cinema had already created colossal movies based on ancient civilizations, but it is in the 1950s when peplums reach their apogee in Hollywood. Then, peplums take root at Cinecittà studios, in Rome, where cheap cinema is produced with bodybuilders as heroes. The genre decays in the late 1960s, but rises again decades later, when a modern classic is released in 2000.
An unflinching look at the ongoing debate on violence in movies and its effect on the audience.
Filmmakers, social scientists and authors take a provocative look at the moral, political and ethical themes of the Dirty Harry films.
Three directors; Curtis Hanson, Martin Scorsese, and John Milius discuss the movie The Searchers.
A fascinating chronicle of the birth and rise of the radically different independent studio founded by director Francis Ford Coppola.
Part one in a documentary trilogy about the making of "C'era una volta il West". An Opera of Violence begins with a biography of director Sergio Leone. A part about the difficult path Leone had to take to make this film, follows. Part one concludes with the decisions about casting. Who was asked to act in this film, why did Leone choose these actors ?
A look at 1970s Hollywood when it was known as New Hollywood, and the director was the star of the movie.
An overview of the making of the 1948 John Huston classic The Treasure Of The Sierra Madre.
A documentary on the life of painter Frank Frazetta, who revolutionized science fiction, fantasy and comic art with breathtaking realistic paintings of fantastic heroes, most famously Conan the Barbarian.
The second of three parts detailing the making of the movie: Once Upon A Time In The West
This short documentary explores just how the film Pumping Iron revolutionized the fitness industry and created an international icon in Arnold Schwarzenegger. It also touches on what Hollywood's idea of an action star was and is.
Nearly all the cast and crew are on hand to give stories and memories about the making of the film. Plenty of detail on every aspect of the film from pre-production to opening night is covered.
Documentary on the making of The Searchers (1956), starring John Wayne and directed by John Ford, with outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with many of the surviving cast and crew.
Rough Riders is a 1997 television miniseries directed and co-written by John Milius about future President Theodore Roosevelt and the regiment. The series prominently shows the bravery of the volunteers at the Battle of San Juan Hill, part of the Spanish–American War of 1898. It was released on DVD in 2006. The series originally aired on TNT with a four-hour running time, including commercials.
A non-narrated documentary, told mainly in interviews with the filmmakers, on the making of the cult comedy classic, featuring outtakes, rare behind-the-scenes home movies, and trivia facts.
Before "L.A. Confidential", there was "Shotgun Freeway" -- the groundbreaking 1995 documentary about Los Angeles coming to grips with it's own history. Against a backdrop of never-before-seen archival footage, Shotgun Freeway presents a diverse group of "Angelinos" who guide the film through their own past as well as the city's. We get crime scribe James Ellroy reliving his youth as a burglar, Actor/writer Buck Henry's tour of Hollywood fakery, Jazzman Buddy Collette's trip down Central Avenue, Historian Mike Davis' tour of LA's eventual Armageddon, and writer Joan Didion's take on LA's own ephemerality. From the Beaches to the Valley, "Shotgun Freeway" will show you a Los Angeles you never knew existed.
CIA Analyst Jack Ryan is drawn into an illegal war fought by the US government against a Colombian drug cartel.
Cal and his family are driving to their new home in California and are terrorized by a motorcycle gang along the highway.
The Apache Indians have reluctantly agreed to settle on a US Government approved reservation. Not all the Apaches are able to adapt to the life of corn farmers. One in particular, Geronimo, is restless. Pushed over the edge by broken promises and necessary actions by the government, Geronimo and thirty or so other warriors form an attack team which humiliates the government by evading capture, whi
A chronicle of the production problems — including bad weather, actors' health, war near the filming locations, and more — which plagued the filming of Apocalypse Now, increasing costs and nearly destroying the life and career of Francis Ford Coppola.
U.S. Navy pilot Lt. Jake Grafton and his bombardier buddy, Lt. Cmdr. Virgil Cole, are two soldiers embedded in the Vietnam War growing frustrated by the military's constraints on their missions. Despite the best efforts of their commanding officer, Cmdr. Frank Camparelli, to re-engage them, this disillusioned pair decide to take the war effort into their own hands with an explosive battle plan that could well get them court-martialed.
An American soldier who escapes the execution of his comrades by Japanese soldiers in Borneo during WWII becomes the leader of a personal empire among the headhunters in this war story told in the style of Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling. The American is reluctant to rejoin the fight against the Japanese on the urging of a British commando team but conducts a war of vengeance when the Japanese attack his adopted people.
It's a mixed bag in the age of illuminating DVD supplements, but First Works effectively demonstrates the early promise of 13 successful filmmakers. Culled from programs originally broadcast on Showtime in 1990, this crude compilation combines student films, early professional work, and interviews with now-famous directors at various stages of commercial and artistic achievement.
A Texas Ranger and a ruthless narcotics kingpin - they were childhood friends, now they are adversaries...
This 1986 documentary features interviews with director Alexander Mackendrick, actor Burt Lancaster, producer James Hill, and others.
The first revival of Rod Serling's acclaimed 1950/60s television series of the same name.
A golf pro who kills a businessman in order to be with his wife suddenly finds himself occupying the other man's life just before the murder.
A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese...
A film adaptation of the classic sword and sorcery hero, Conan the Barbarian. A horde of rampaging warriors massacre the parents of young Conan and enslave the young child for years on The Wheel of Pain. As the sole survivor of the childhood massacre, Conan is released from slavery and taught the ancient arts of fighting. Transforming himself into a killing machine, Conan travels into the wilderness to seek vengeance on Thulsa Doom, the man responsible for killing his family. In the wilderness, Conan takes up with the thieves Valeria and Subotai. The group comes upon King Osric, who wants the trio of warriors to help rescue his daughter who has joined Doom in the hills.
At the height of the Vietnam war, Captain Benjamin Willard is sent on a dangerous mission that, officially, "does not exist, nor will it ever exist." His goal is to locate - and eliminate - a mysterious Green Beret Colonel named Walter Kurtz, who has been leading his personal army on illegal guerrilla missions into enemy territory.
Three 1960s California surfers fool around, drift apart and reunite years later to ride epic waves.
At the beginning of the 20th century an American woman is abducted in Morocco by Berbers, and the attempts to free her range from diplomatic pressure to military intervention.
Agent Melvin Purvis is placed in charge of running down notorious killer Machine Gun Kelly, and sets out to do just that.
The life of American public enemy number one who was shot by the police in 1934. After a shoot-out kills five FBI agents in Kansas City the Bureau target John Dillinger as one of the men to hunt down. Waiting for him to break Federal law they sort out several other mobsters, while Dillinger's bank robbing exploits make him something of a folk hero. Escaping from jail he finds Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson have joined the gang and pretty soon he is Public Enemy Number One. Now the G-men really are after him.
Marcello, I'm So Bored is a 1966 short animated film co-directed by John Milius and John Strawbridge. An intentionally crude cartoon with a live action epilogue in which Milius appears with Gayle Hunnicutt. The film was made when Milius was a student at the University of Southern California and was a parody of Italian cinema. The film was edited by George Lucas. Milius' first film is important because it was the beginning point for his contribution of a style emphasizing depth and meaning in American popular films.
"Dirty" Harry Callahan is a San Francisco Police Inspector on the trail of a group of rogue cops who have taken justice into their own hands. When shady characters are murdered one after another in grisly fashion, only Dirty Harry can stop them.
A mountain man who wishes to live the life of a hermit becomes the unwilling object of a long vendetta by Indians when he proves to be the match of their warriors in one-to-one combat on the early frontier.
Outlaw and self-appointed lawmaker, Judge Roy Bean, rules over an empty stretch of the West that gradually grows, under his iron fist, into a thriving town, while dispensing his his own quirky brand of frontier justice upon strangers passing by.
Alan Arkin, dressed like a sea captain, aimlessly sails the American highways in his 18 wheeler mumbling manic, southern accented non sequiturs; carnivalizing roadside stops and happenstance towns while out-wierding cops and weigh stations with his new cryptic, overcoated hitchhiker buddy.
When a madman dubbed 'Scorpio' terrorizes San Francisco, hard-nosed cop, Harry Callahan – famous for his take-no-prisoners approach to law enforcement – is tasked with hunting down the psychopath. Harry eventually collars Scorpio in the process of rescuing a kidnap victim, only to see him walk on technicalities. Now, the maverick detective is determined to nail the maniac himself.
Biography of the famed motorcycle daredevil, much of which was filmed in his home town of Butte, Montana. The film depicts Knievel reflecting on major events in his life just before a big jump.
The Devil's 8 is a 1969 film from American International Pictures. It is about a Federal agent (Christopher George) who recruits six convicts to bust a moonshine ring.
Comments on the background and popularity of disc jockey "Emperor" Bob Hudson, who bases his shows on the idea that radio is a fantasy.
The 202 minute, extended version of the 1979 epic war film "Apocalypse Now" released in 2001. This version contains 49 minutes that were initially cut from the theatrical film version.
A fictionalized story of the violet invasion of Aztec- ruled Mexico by the Spanish in the early 1600s. Told entirely from the point of view of the Aztecs.
This feature documentary traces the story of Conan from Robert E. Howard's pulp fiction anti-hero to pop culture icon.
