Woohoo! They interviewed John Milius! He penned and directed a little flick called RED DAWN, you might have seen....
[b]Ready For Action
Others in Hollywood may be urging tolerance in the wake of the terrorist attacks, but gung-ho director John Milius is ready to see America kick some butt.
Milius is the guy who fed Clint Eastwood's Dirty Harry some of his immortal lines ("You've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya, punk?"). He also wrote "Apocalypse Now," and went on to direct such testosteronefueled films as "Conan the Barbarian," "Farewell to the King" and "Red Dawn."
When we reached him in Dutchess County, Milius was ready for questions about how America should approach Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.
"Historically, the last person to handle this region well was Genghis Khan," said Milius. "When they showed him the cities of what is now Afghanistan, he said, 'I see nothing but pastures for my horses.' He was relentless."
Milius grants that Bin Laden is "a wily and dangerous opponent." He knows that Afghan fighters are famed for their toughness. "But could the Afghanis have taken Iwo Jima?" he says. "I don't think so."
Told that Richard Gere is working on an "anti-hate campaign," Milius growled, "I hope he doesn't embarrass himself. That stuff is a load of crap. It doesn't fly anymore.
"All this self-indulgent 'me' stuff from the '90s — the situational ethics — have gone right out the window. People are going to have to measure up."
Milius, 57, was rejected by the Army in his youth because of chronic asthma. But during Operation Desert Storm, he flew to the Persian Gulf hoping to film the conflict — "like John Huston in World War II." To his frustration, that war ended shortly after he arrived.
"I want to offer my services again," he said.
He has no appetite for turning the Sept. 11 attacks into a feature film.
"What's bizarre is that [the attacks] resemble what we've seen in the movies," said Milius, who has adapted to the screen two Tom Clancy novels ("The Hunt for Red October" and "Clear and Present Danger").
"I don't want to be responsible for putting any more scenarios out there."
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