It was an old-fashioned everyfilmin2011 mess up. We arrived at Nottingham Cineworld with five minutes to spare for its only showing of Apocalypse Now.
I can't remember looking forward to a movie so much but guess what? I forgot our Unlimited passes.
So here is a heartfelt thank-you very much for the brilliantly understanding duty manager who gave us the benefit of the doubt and let us in.
I must admit I did feel like a guilt schoolboy when she proclaimed: "This is the only time and it's only because this movie is on for one night only. Never forget them again!''
I humbly said my thanks and Mrs W gave me the if-I-had-been-to-blame-for-this-you-would-never-have- let-me-forget-it stare.
Still, I could have been in a stickier spot. I could have been in the jungle on the trail of a mad renegade US colonel in the Vietnam war.
That was the mission if Martin Sheen was willing to accept it and he surely did.
I notice I have waffled on for while to cover my second embarrassment of the night. That is to admit that I had never seen Apocalypse Now before.
And I have to say it scored where Taxi Driver failed a couple of weeks ago.
Francis Ford Coppola's classic passes the test of time with flying colours.
There really is no need for me to go into the storyline because I am probably the only person in the Western world who hadn't seen it until now.
But suffice to say Sheen (who looks and sounds eerily like his manic son Charlie) is just stupendous as the captain on a secret mission.
I couldn't believe how much of the movie he seemed to be bathed in sweat.
But depsite how good he is, the film was stolen from him by the incredible performance of Robert Duvall, as the lunatic battlion leader who is more obsessed with surfing than the fact that bombs are going off all around him.
Then, of course, there is Marlon Brando with his stunning epilogue.
Coppola has apparently overseen this restoration to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Apocalypse Now's release.
It has lost no punch. In fact, its anti-war message is probably more potent now than it was when the movie was made.
Indeed, it struck Mrs W and I as ironic how few lessons had been learned about futile conflicts in foreign lands despite recognition of movies like this.
There are so many more things I could eulogise about but my highlights were:
The opening sequences were just amazing (the sound of helicopters whirred around us in the cinema before any appeared).
The carpet bombing of the Vitenamese village by aircarft under the instruction of Duvall's character ("I love the smell of napalm in the morning.'')
And the surreal confrontation between Sheen and Brando.
Oh, and I nearly forgot Dennis Hopper as the demented photographer.
This was absolutely magnificent film-making. It had only one very minor drawback - it was about 20 minutes too long.
That said, it gets 9.5/10 and three decades after it was released will at least enter one top ten again come Sunday.
And thanks again to the lass at Cineworld for making it possible.
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