Early last February I wrote that the August 7th release date of Ricki and the Flash seemed to indicate caution on the part of TriStar, the distributor. A drama directed by the widely respected Jonathan Demme, written by Diablo Cody and starring Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline? I don’t know a  thing but Ricki looks — emphasis on that word — like “the first high-pedigree, seemingly interesting 2015 film to be…I don’t want to say dumped but that release date has certainly lowered expectations all around.”

I somehow can’t imagine Alfred Hitchcock behind a wheel and making his way through Los Angeles traffic and getting frustrated by rush-hour annoyances. I just can’t see it. In my mind he was this sedate, settled old-school guy who rode in the backs of limousines. Or sat in a director’s chair or at the dinner table or in his den. I can’t even imagine him walking any kind of distance. Even when he was young. One of those guys who seemed born in a suit. A guy I know ran into Hitchcock once at a hotel and said that he looked shortish — the current consensus seems to be that he was 5′ 7″. I just remembered I was supposed to call Kent Jones in Paris to discuss his Hitchcock/Truffaut doc. Maybe we can chat in Paris on Friday or this weekend. Update: Seeing Jones’ film (and presumably Jones himself) on Monday morning in Paris.

A new 4K restoration of Sir Carol Reed‘s The Third Man (’49) will screen at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival as part of a celebration of Orson Welles’ 100th birthday (which is today). Pic is being theatrically re-released in British cinemas on 6.26; one presumes that a subsequent Bluray will be issued down the road. Remember that horribly grainstormed Criterion Bluray of The Third Man that popped in February 2009? Glenn Kenny and the loyal order of grain monks accused me of having plebian tastes when I panned it, but if I never see that awful disc again it’ll be too soon. I was told at the time by a restoration specialist that The Third Man could never look as immaculate as Casablanca or Citizen Kane because it was shot on location in Vienna under less-than-optimum conditions. I’ll check out the 4K showing in Cannes, but I’m not expecting very much.

Whatever progress he may or may not have made with creating custom-made furniture, Mike Lane (Channing Tatum) is back to stripping. At least to the extent of participating in a big male stripper’s convention in South Carolina. So he can…what, earn seed money for his business? Magic Mike XXL (Warner Bros., 71) costars Matt Bomer (destined to inhabit the soul of Montgomery Clift in an HBO biopic), Joe Manganiello, Kevin Nash, et. al. Along with Andie Macdowell, Amber Heard, Jada Pinkett Smith and Elizabeth Banks. Directed by Gregory Jacobs but (this is significant) shot and edited by Steven Soderbergh.

A little more than 33 years ago (i.e., March or April of ’82) I attended a small press screening of George Miller‘s The Road Warrior. Ten or twelve journos, if that. At the old Warner Bros. screening room on 51st near 6th, a block from Rockefeller Center. My reaction was basically “holy shit.” Not just rousing and crafty, I told myself, but phenomenal, epochal. The first classy, clever, nonexploitational post-apocalyptic action flick I’d ever seen (the original Mad Max wouldn’t open until later), and certainly the first with a pitch-black, fuck-all sense of humor about itself, “the wasteland”, the gas crises of the ’70s…everything. And certainly the first to feature a gang of gay, leather-wearing, motorcycle-riding marauders. Something new, amazing…”Apocalypse Pow!,” as Richard Corliss wrote. And what a shot of adrenaline for Mel Gibson — a rising light in the spring of ’82 (costar of Peter Weir‘s Gallipoli, star of Weir’s then-upcoming The Year of Living Dangerously) but now, suddenly, a major action star.

I’ve been thinking about that ’82 screening because earlier today I saw Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, this time at the current Warner Bros. screening room on West 53rd near 7th Avenue. In glorious 2D. I can’t say anything until next Tuesday afternoon (specifically noontime Pacific) but I can at least say that I plan on seeing it again in Cannes. I hope that legendary dp Vittorio Storaro intends to see it soon also, as I haven’t seen a major film with such beautiful, oddly glowing desert hues since Storaro’s The Sheltering Sky (’90).

I’ve now watched “Lost Horizon,” the latest Mad Men episode, twice, and I can’t get this iconic image of Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) out of my head. This plus the drunken roller-skating moment with Roger Sterling (John Slattery), I mean. Even if nothing else happens in Peggy’s life between now and the last episode, it’ll be okay. A dangling lit cigarette hasn’t seemed this sexy or cool since the noir heyday of Robert Mitchum.

There’s no right or wrong in film criticism, particularly when it comes to the often curious and sometimes perverse business of comedy, but given the withering dismissals of Anne Fletcher‘s Hot Pursuit by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy and Variety‘s Andrew Barker, I’m wondering how to process Stephanie Zacharek’s thumbs-up review. Even allowing for the maxim that what is screamingly funny to women can sometimes leave men cold and vice vera, it seems odd that Zacharek’s disagreement with McCarthy/Barker is not just about sensibility and tone but the levels of basic craft.

“With Reese Witherspoon producing and Sofia Vergara credited as an exec producer, the film represents an all-too-rare example of a studio comedy featuring women in charge on both sides of the camera,” Barker notes. “But it’s hard to cheer too loudly for a film that often misfires with near-Happy Madison levels of imprecision.”

“Isn’t this the sort of nitwit comedy Reese Witherspoon wasn’t going to have to make anymore after becoming a producer on the likes of Wild and Gone Girl?,” McCarthy writes. “A jaw-droppingly klutzy law enforcement farce in the vein of The Heat, albeit deprived of the R-rated raunch and out-there gags, this is a down-home comedy that should have stayed there, as it does no favors to the appealing but ill-served (and poorly photographed) co-stars Witherspoon and Vergara.