Heat

It was really an experience getting to watch this in a theater. It's been a while since I've watched this, probably around 3 years, but I still remembered the majority because of how memorable the scenes and entire atmosphere are. Every aspect of this film is as close to perfect as it can be to my frail, innocent eyes. From the cinematography, the sound, the writing, the themes of obsession and desolation are really well portrayed, and the entire cast could not have been any better at any point in time. Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore are wonderful, Diane Venora and Ashley Judd do as great a job as any actors could with their limited screentime. Robert Deniro is perfect as a pouty no-nonsense loner and Al Pacino is so coked up throughout that it's astonishing that he was able to pull off any of his serious scenes with a modicum of sincerity, but he pulls it off in full swing. I also don't mind the 3 hour running time because of how well the story is paced. It balances the dialogue-heavy scenes with the action set-pieces super well. I'm both skeptical and also kind of excited to see how Heat 2 will turn out since it's been close to 30 years since the prior film came out. I haven't read the book, and I don't really intend to, at least not before seeing how it comes out as a movie. Also, the story behind the making of Michael Mann's prior film, L.A. Takedown, which was his first and low-budget attempt at making the story of Heat, is really interesting since it contains a bunch of scenes that would later be used in Heat.