Elstree 1976 goes deep on Star Wars, Patton Oswalt’s Talking for Clapping hits Netflix, and more must-sees

Thursday 5.12
Nicholas Ray is famous for directing James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, but his Humphrey Bogart-led 1950 melodrama, In A Lonely Place, may be his (and Bogart’s) finest moment. Ray’s most personal film, it chronicles the lusty highs of true love between Bogart’s troubled screenwriter and his mysterious neighbor (Gloria Grahame), and the eventual dissolution of the relationship. Adapted from a Dorothy B. Hughes thriller, it jettisons a murder-mystery plot in favor of deep character study, something that was very uncommon at the time. It’s out now, getting the full Criterion Collection treatment on Blu-ray.

Friday 5.13
Sure, Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane is widely regarded as the best movie of all time. But his performance as Falstaff in his maligned-at-the-time 1966 Shakespeare mash-up, Chimes at Midnight, is now considered by many to be his greatest performance. In 1967, New York Times’ curmudgeon Bosley Crowther called it “big, squashy tatterdemalion show,” while that same paper’s Vincent Canby said in 1992 that it “may be the greatest Shakespearean film ever made, bar none.” It has been digitally restored by Janus Films and opens today at Tivoli Cinemas.

Saturday 5.14
If you enjoy bold cinematic adaptations of seemingly unadaptable books (I do!), you may want to see director Ben Wheatley (Kill List, Sightseers) take a stab at J.G. Ballard’s brutal 1975 satire-of-excess, High Rise. It opened yesterday at Screenland Crossroads and succeeds only as a curiosity — a swing-for-the-fences attempt to wrest narrative coherence from over-exaggerated satire. If you enjoy David Cronenberg’s similarly challenging Ballard adaptation, Crash (I do!), and other films that throw story structure and logic out the window, this may be right up your alley.

Sunday 5.15
Who doesn’t like Patton Oswalt? Technically, I guess, that answer could go either way, given that the longtime comedian is extremely opinionated. Thankfully, Oswalt’s self-effacing nature makes his self-righteous opinions easier to swallow when you don’t agree with him. His new comedy special, Talking for Clapping, is streaming exclusively on Netflix now, and features riffs not just on pop culture and fatherhood but also about his own second-guessing of the need to weigh in on everything. Through it all, he’s deliriously honest, and that’s why he’s so funny.

Monday 5.16
If 1977’s Star Wars made a permanent and lasting impression on your psyche, you won’t want to miss the documentary Elstree 1976, showing just once, tonight at 7 at the Alamo Drathouse Mainstreet. The crowd-funded movie interviews the actors behind the masks of Darth Vader, Greedo, and eight-bit players to see how being in a pop-culture phenomenon did (and didn’t) affect them. The advance word is that the 20 minutes of stories about the filming can’t be beat, while there’s surprising poignancy in the later-day fan convention section.

Tuesday 5.17
I was lucky enough to see the new restoration of the overlooked (and thought to have been lost in a fire) 1950 noir Woman on the Run at the Noir City Film Festival last year, and it immediately jumped way up on my list of all-time noir faves. Ann Sheridan upends femme fatale conventions of the day, playing a whip-smart San Fransisco woman who is always one step ahead of the cops and the mobsters. At a brisk 80 minutes, it’s fast-moving, compelling and has style to spare. Today is a true cause for celebration: The film debuts on Blu-ray from Flicker Alley.

Wednesday 5.18
Tonight is the finale of The Last Panthers, a fictional, six-episode limited series starring Samantha Morton and John Hurt. Based on the exploits of notorious real-life Balkan jewel thieves the Pink Panthers, this French-funded, European-set show has been running in America on Sundance TV, which few cable subscribers have. Luckily, sundance.tv is streaming the entire run until July 18, so mark this one down for future binge-watching.

Eric Melin is the editor of Scene-Stealers.com and president of the KC Film Critics Circle.