Brilliant

John Milius has long been a hero of mine. Uncommon Valor (which he produced) is one of the best little war movies of the 1980s and as kid, I fell in love with it. Conan The Barbarian, Red Dawn and Big Wednesday are just extraordinary cinematic explosions... each with its own visceral thrills and sweeping operatic glory. No one writes war poetry like Milius. He always knew how to make dialogue sing... and only he could make a surf epic soar in a way no other had before or will again. In fact, he created the surf epic. Basil Poledouris' scores compliment his work so well it seems the two artists were destined to converge in a smash of atoms... the result greater than the sum of its parts. Whether it's the cathartic journey through darkness of Apocalypse Now or the visceral cool of Dirty Harry's slow burning antihero, you can't deny the power of Milius' vision or the pathos in his writing. He is perhaps the most prolific and successful screenwriter of the modern age. His contributions have permeated pop culture and live on through a new generation just discovering phrases like "Charlie don't surf" and "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"... used most recently in an episode of Entourage. Who would Dirty Harry be without "Do you feel lucky, well do ya punk?" And let's not forget "Go ahead, make my day." Some of my favorite dialogue Milius ever wrote was from the uncredited script polish he did for Sean Connery on The Hunt for Red October - "It reminds me of the heady days of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin when the world trembled at the sound of our rockets. Now they will tremble again, at the sound of our silence. The order is: engage the silent drive" (but they'll hear us, Captain)... "Let them sing." Nobody's words sing quite like the master at arms himself, John Milius. Bravo, Sir!