Today, I’m going to go with a new format for The Morning After. Each film will have its own separate review posting and this article will bear links to each individual movie review. The only review content that won’t merit it’s own page will be television series reviews, which will continue to be highlighted in this article.

So, here is what I watched this weekend:

The Right Stuff

A segment of the history of aviation from the breaking of the sound barrier to the first manned orbital flights, The Right Stuff has a compelling narrative, strong performances and some stirring images. One of the more egregious problems with the film is the injection of unnecessary comic acts, mostly foisted on the audience by the wasted talents of Harry Shearer and Jeff Goldblum. Otherwise, there isn’t a clunker of a performance from the wizened Scott Glenn as Alan Shepard to the self-righteous Ed Harris as John Glenn to the young and cocky Dennis Quaid as Gordon Cooper. Fred Ward’s Gus Grissom and Sam Shepard as Chuck Yeager also add ably to the film.

The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz

I will reserve my commentary on this film for the Film Club discussion which should begin on or around August 22.

Psych, Season 5 (episodes 5-11)

The continued adventures of Shawn Spencer and Burton Guster continue on a predictable path that searches for obscure crimes to paint its detectives into jumped conclusions and false leads before our hero resolves the crime in the end. The formula does grow wearisome after awhile and these episodes just don’t have the spark of originality that carried the first four seasons. Yet, there are enough enjoyable episodes to make for a satisfying diversion with the episode “Viagra Falls” which pulled in two classic TV detectives to help administer justice: Carl Weathers (Cannon, Barnaby Jones) and William Devane (Hawaii Five-O). While I remember the episodes when looking back at the recaps, they are hard to remember otherwise. Other entertaining episodes so far this season include “Chivalry Is Not Dead…but Someone Is” with the hilarious Jean Smart guest starring as a cougar prowling younger men and “Shawn & Gus in Drag (Racing)” where the pair feel the need for speed as they attempt to unravel the murder of a car thief.

Psych, Season 5 (episodes 12): “Dual Spires”

After the first eleven episodes of the season, I was beginning to worry about the future quality of the series when the twelfth episode began. A twist on the amazing David Lynch TV series Twin Peaks, Shawn and Gus are informed by e-mail of a cinnamon festival in a sequestered town high in the mountains called Dual Spires. This locked-away community has a bizarre set of residents many of whom become suspects when a young girl washes up on the shore of the lake Twin Peaks-style. This send-up is not only an amazing fun time if you’ve ever seen the Lynch masterwork, but it is easily one of the greatest spoofs/homages ever put on television.

The writers did an amazing job re-creating the nuanced nuttiness of Twin Peaks. There are so many details that conjure up memories of Twin Peaks that if this weren’t so outrageously funny from start to finish, you might think you were watching a modernized version. What’s even more impressive is that they managed to pull in a number of prominent actors from the original series to play roles here. Sheryl Lee, who began her career on the show as corpse Laura Palmer, plays the town’s resident lawyer, doctor, psychiatrist, and other jobs; Sherilynn Fenn who played Audrey, Laura’s best friend, plays the town’s sexy librarian; now gray-templed Dana Ashbrook who played Laura’s boyfriend, plays the dead girl Paula Merral’s father; and Lenny Von Dohlen, who had a very brief appearance on the original series, plays the town sheriff. And because the producers had already used Ray Wise, who played Laura’s father in Twin Peaks, in a previous season’s episode of Psych, they brought Wise’s Father Westley character back to add more amazing humor to the episode.

It’s too bad this one wasn’t the final episode of the season as it would have been a nice capper. Still, after Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s incredible homage episode Trials and Tribble-ations (which takes the original Star Trek‘s episode The Trouble with Tribbles and puts Captain Sisko and crew aboard the Enterprise during that episode’s events), this remains one of my favorite reverential send-ups on television to date.