MAY MOVIE CLUB - TOUGH SHIT

Against all odds and the time is ticking. Get it together, pull off the job, get the big score or get nothin’.

• 5/14: STRAIGHT TIME (1978)

  Dustin Hoffman plays a freshly released convict trying to stay clean in a world that doesn’t care. Ulu Grosbard directs with an eye for routine failure and quiet desperation, letting the streets of L.A. speak. It’s New Hollywood stripped down— just survival and impulse.

• 5/21: THIEF (1981)

  Michael Mann’s debut feels like the 1970s  burning out in a blaze of neon and steel. James Caan is a safecracker whose tight control is tested by forces far bigger than he ever wanted to confront. Mann modernized the existential crook, blending hard realism with a stylized pulse that would shape crime cinema for decades.

• 5/28: BLUE COLLAR (1978)

  Paul Schrader’s directorial debut is a razor-edged look at working-class rage and broken systems. Pryor, Keitel, and Kotto deliver ferocious performances as Detroit autoworkers pushed past the brink. Schrader, already a force in New Hollywood screenwriting, directs like he’s got something to prove—and he does.