Bingowings said:

John Milius' Conan was great in of itself. His brain (and the he really does have a brain) is a giant meatball of testosterone and therefore ideal for making films of that kind.

Well put! I was trying to describe Milius to a friend a while back and wish I had thought of a metaphor like that. I really like the commentary he did with Arnold Schwarzenegger for Conan. It's one of my favorite commentaries. I also like his contributions to the documentary that is on the THX 1138 DVD.

There are only so many uber masculine that can knuckle crawl and swagger their way around the circuit (in the eighties you couldn't shift for them). Arnie fitted that film and The Terminator because it was all about his body and he had the brain to work it in a way that the camera loved. When he was re-marketed as Roger Moore with muscles he rarely approached that level of artistic success.

Exactly right!

I miss the eighties...