'Heat' – The Ultimate L.A. Movie, the Ultimate Obsession

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Back in 2018, I heard about a guy in Australia called Blake Howard — for the reason that he loved the same movie as me. A lot.

The movie was Michael Mann’s 1995 crime thriller "Heat". Yet unlike me, Howard loved it so much that he was obsessively making a podcast series analyzing the film one minute at a time, episode by episode — all 170 minutes of it. The podcast was called "One Heat Minute".

Minute-by-minute movie podcasts are nothing new, but I was so intrigued by Howard’s professional dedication to "Heat," of all movies, that I interviewed him in Sept., 2018. We talked about both becoming obsessed with "Heat" as impressionable teens, podcasting’s ability to create community around extremely niche interests, and his wild fantasy that his cinematic idol, "Heat" director Mann, would one day be on "One Heat Minute." We laughed about the sheer implausibility of that last idea, and I wrote up our conversation as a story about sincerity and obsession.

Now, at the end of his quest two years after he first started, "One Heat Minute" has spawned a hyper-enthusiastic online fan base, been named in "Vulture’s" 100 Great Podcasts, been hailed by movie luminaries like Guillermo del Toro, and welcomed its final guest...  Michael Mann.

So now, this is a story about sincerity, obsession and what happens when the usual gulf between famous creators and fandom gets unexpectedly obliterated.

'Clinically Obsessed'

Even if you haven’t seen "Heat," trust me: you probably still know "Heat." De Niro as a meticulous L.A. bank robber planning the heist of a lifetime, Al Pacino as a volatile cop consumed by taking him down — with a supporting cast stuffed with '90s A-listers from Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore to Ashley Judd and Natalie Portman.

"Heat" is also loud, bombastic and drips with machismo, and even a lifelong superfan like me can giggle at the riper portions of its dialogue (“For me, the action is the juice!”) — or roll my eyes a little at how much less drawn the female roles (wives, girlfriends) seem in comparison to their male counterparts. Pacino's performance is infamously brash, and makes a lot more sense when you find out his character was meant to be high on cocaine.

Yet as a portrait of a dark, dangerous L.A., and two men obsessed with their professions to the exclusion of all else in life, "Heat" radiates an unusual kind of ennui not often found in action movies. Its major themes are loss and loneliness, and moments such as Pacino’s confession to his soon-to-be-ex-wife — “All I have is what I’m going after” — take Mann’s movie to far more melancholic places than most thrillers. Added to its two iconic leads, this at least partly explains why "Heat" has developed something of a cult following in the quarter century since it was released.

Part of that following since he first saw it? Blake Howard. He describes himself as becoming “clinically obsessed with movies” in his youth, thanks in part to an older brother who worked in a video warehouse and would bring back the VHS spoils for Howard’s consumption. Among those videotapes was "Heat."

Even though it’s regarded as one of the quintessential Los Angeles movies, the version of the city a young Howard saw in this movie — the lonely industrial landscapes, the car culture, the endless roads — was one he hadn’t seen before. It was one that in many ways reminded him of his native Sydney. “This sprawling place... [that] felt so dilapidated,” he says, “like it was empty.” And as Howard grew older he found "Heat" assuming a place in his life as a kind of cinematic life companion, welded to him by “existential and philosophical underpinnings that kind of enriched every viewing.”

Of all the movies in the world, a melancholy '90s crime thriller about obsession and alienation, set thousands of miles away, wouldn’t let him go. “I never could satiate the itch to continue talking about it,” he says — even as he became a part time movie critic himself.

That’s why in 2017, Howard was affectionately goaded by fellow critic Stu Coote into realizing his dream to “just f****** talk about "Heat" every day” — and starting the "One Heat Minute" podcast. It was, Howard says, “the ultimate way to tackle and wrestle with this movie.”

'This Is One Heat Minute'

Initially skeptical that anyone outside of his personal circle of movie critic buddies would be into it, Howard drew from them for his first guests. The first 14 episodes were recorded in a single day, with all the same people, and the production values were low.

But remember: a lot of people really like "Heat." By the time I first spoke with him in 2018, Howard’s monomaniacal, homespun podcast had begun to draw listening numbers in the thousands — and his guest list had moved into the heavy-hitters. Critics like Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, Matt Zoller Sietz of RoberEbert.com: all showing up, over Skype, to hear Howard intone "This is 'One Heat Minute'" and talk enthusiastically about nothing but "Heat" for well over an hour each.

As the "Heat" minutes progressed, and his podcast episodes climbed over 100, Howard started scoring guests who’d actually been involved in making the movie. Like legendary cinematographer Dante Spinotti, who’d created those shots that Howard had grown up imprinting on his brain, and editor Pasquale “Pat” Buba, who appeared on "One Heat Minute" before his death in September 2018.

“I was thrilled every single week to talk to every new person or sometimes repeat guests,” says Howard, “because they were just so great.”

After our first chat for KQED, I even joined Howard’s band of fanatics on "One Heat Minute" myself. That’s me on Episode 148 discussing the intricate progressions of Robert De Niro’s facial expressions. Coming off the Skype call with Howard, feeling almost drunk on the pleasures of discussing the minute details of a movie with which I’d been intimate since my teens, I was overwhelmed by how good such shared monomania could feel. I finally understood why he’d been able to secure so many guests.

'All I Have is What I'm Going After'

There was still that unfathomable dream in the back of Howard’s mind: scoring Michael Mann himself.

The idea that the award-winning director who made the movie that defined Howard’s entire life would even answer the phone — let alone sit down for an hour of taped conversation — still seemed crazy. Except for the fact that one of his "One Heat Minute" guests, "Vulture" critic Bilge Ebiri was on good terms with Mann — and was determined to lobby him on Howard’s behalf.

“I said ‘Even if he just knows about it, it would be great,’” says Howard. “But [Ebiri] is like ‘No: he's not only got to know about it, I'm going to tell him he has to do the show.”

Which is how, after much back-and-forth with the relevant representatives, on Episode 167, Michael Mann finally became Howard’s last "One Heat Minute" guest.

'Very Flattered That You're Doing This'

Were you nervous, I ask Howard? Knowing you had an hour with the man who’d made the movie that’s become the primary text of your life?

“In the before moment, I was nervous,” he says. “I was mildly freaking out. But when we started talking I don't think I've ever been more confident in any interview that I've ever undertaken.”

“I was,” he reminds me, “the most prepared person to ever have a conversation about 'Heat' to Michael Mann.”

And if you yourself listen to the episode, what will you hear? A famously obsessive filmmaker discussing his own movie about obsessive men, with the guy who’s so obsessed with it that he’s based over 150 podcast episodes on it.

“I’m very flattered that you’re doing this,” are Mann’s first words in his episode, and you can hear the grin in his voice. When Howard asks about the director’s decision to appear on the podcast, the director explains that the whole endeavor "sounded completely insane in a totally wonderful way."

On the subject of his work and his intentions, Mann is a serious, sincere interviewee who employs terms like “contrapuntal” when describing his cinematic output. “His recall for a movie that was made in 1995 and the character motivations and things that he'd had in mind for how that would look was just unbelievable,” notes Howard.

Yet in conversation, Mann’s sheer enthusiasm for movies, often overlooked amid his professional reputation as an extreme perfectionist, is also given free rein. Reminiscing about filming that powerful final "Heat" minute, where Pacino and De Niro’s characters face off in LAX and only one survives, Mann is uncharacteristically effusive: “It felt like ‘man, I don’t want to be anywhere else on Planet Earth at this moment in time but this set, making this movie.’”

In terms of dedication and enthusiasm, the award-winning longtime Hollywood director suddenly sounded a lot... like Howard himself.

'Our Little Campfire'

“I compliment your obsessions,” Mann told Howard in a message recorded for a "One Heat Minute" live show at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival.

“And from one of the most fastidious and obsessive filmmakers that has ever walked the face of the Earth to compliment your obsessions? That's pretty special,” says Howard. But after all that, where does obsession go?

With the conclusion of "One Heat Minute," Howard is making even more podcasts about movies, including "All the President’s Men" ("All the Presidents Minutes") and Mann’s own "Last of the Mohicans" ("The Last Twelve Minutes of the Mohicans").

Yet "One Heat Minute" remains the fan project that a lot of people in Hollywood now know about. “For my name to be now synonymous with this movie is probably one of my greatest ever accomplishments” says Howard.

“Podcasts themselves are little campfires that you can sort of huddle around,” Howard says. “Hopefully our little campfire has brought a lot of people... joy following along."