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Hswaii Five-0 is at its best when Jerry is let out of his basement office for an extended period of time.

It's a shame that it was under such tragic circumstances on Hawaii Five-0 Season 7 Episode 9, as Jerry's friend Susie gets shot down in front of him.

There are many theories floating around about who actually killed President Kennedy, and this episode effectively taps into the conviction of conspiracy theorists that, as Jerry puts it, "the Lgt (Lone Guman Theory) is crap."

As Jerry's oldest friend at Five-0, it falls to Chin to comfort Jerry, as Chin knows him best.

Jerry: Is this water ...

Chin: Distilled? Yeah, I know how you feel about tap water.

Permalink: Distilled? Yeah, I know how you feel about tap water. Added: November 18, 2016

As they retrace Susie's final days, Jerry and Chin have a nice Mulder-and-Scully vibe going on. (It's great to see those Lost alumni thrown together.

Laughing during an alien invasion movie is nothing new. I mean, my sides are still hurting from "Battleship." But laughing intentionally during an alien invasion has its place in the annals of movie history, as well.

Upon reflection, the aliens should bring with them the full spectrum of emotion. (Along with those dry ice cream squares.) Beings from distant stars may be just like us. Some of us are scary and evil, but some of us are funny and fun. (And some of us have horrendous scales that secrete an acid that can chew through steel – but let's leave former Secretary of State Dean Rusk out of this.)

This weekend, three of your favorite comic actors (and one British dude you've been meaning to learn more about) are serving up some interstellar hilarity in "The Watch." The movie is a hoot but, unfortunately, the aliens themselves aren't the source of the LOLz.

Yes, we know it suggests that mutants saved the world from a nuclear apocalypse in 1962. Stop focusing on the details

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

Entertainment grade: A–

History grade: D+

In the summer of 1962, the Soviets started to build missile sites in Cuba. The Americans found out in October of that year. The discovery led to the Cuban missile crisis – 13 days of tense strategising and negotiations during which the world came horrifyingly close to all-out nuclear war.

Science

The film begins in 1944 in Poland, where a boy with an unusual ability to move metal objects by force of will is under study by an evil Nazi-aligned scientist, Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon). Just to make things clear from the start, superhero mutants are not a historical fact. Still, it's not a documentary. Moreover, Nazi scientists did perform horrible experiments on people they considered to be biologically unusual. The movie's...

The State Department's crisis center has been operating in secrecy for half a century, currently keeping Hillary Clinton and others up to speed on what's going on, from Damascus to Kabul, 24/7. Daniel Stone gets a rare peek at how "Ops" works.

Late in April of 1961, President Kennedy was planning the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba. While his entire administration was at work figuring out how to depose Fidel Castro, Secretary of State Dean Rusk called up one of his senior aides. "Set up a crisis center right now," he said, according to an unpublished memo declassified last month. "Figure out how to get rid of Castro and then we'll see what else there is for the center to do. You'll get any help you want in the department. Get going."

Related story on The Daily Beast: Should We Hit Gaddafi Next?

Analysts assembled in one of Foggy Bottom's biggest...

Stanley Kubrick's grisly Vietnam drama exposes the impact of the Tet Offensive

Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Entertainment grade: A

History grade: B+

The Tet offensive was a major engagement in the Vietnam war in 1968. To coincide with Tet, the most important holiday in the Vietnamese calendar, north Vietnamese and Vietcong forces hit hundreds of targets in south Vietnam.

Strategy

The first half of the film follows a group of United States marine recruits training in South Carolina. Though it qualifies as fiction rather than history, its point – that marine training was no picnic – is doubtless valid. The graduates go on to Vietnam, where the Tet holiday is looming. Joker (Matthew Modine) has become a military reporter. "A bro in intelligence says Charlie [the Vietcong] might try to pull off something big during the Tet holiday," he says. "They say the same thing every year," growls his commanding officer, Lockhart...

Dennis Hopper: actor, artist, filmmaker, Hollywood survivor.

Just days after remembering the loss of Sydney Pollack two years ago, we awaken to mourn the loss of another Hollywood icon, Dennis Hopper, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday. Hopper had been on my short list of "dream interviews" during my tenure at Venice Magazine. When I was lucky enough to finally sit down with him in November of 2008, I was thrilled, and didn't know quite what to expect.

What I found while smoking cigars with Hopper in his Venice home-studio, was a thoughtful man with a gentle demeanor, who spoke in measured tones and loved telling stories. Gone was the wild-eyed "enfant terrible" that Hopper had made his name playing, and sometimes living. What I saw instead was a man who seemed to be at peace with himself and his life, who loved his children, art, film and new ideas.

This partisan politico-drama focuses on the Cuban missile crisis, with only a cursory glance in the direction of Havana and Moscow. With Kevin Costner in the starring role, we wouldn't expect anything else

Director: Roger Donaldson

Entertainment grade: B+

History grade: A–

The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 was a nuclear stand-off between the United States and Ussr. The Soviets placed missiles in Cuba, so the Americans blockaded the island. For two weeks, there was a serious danger that the confrontation might result in a third – and potentially devastating – world war.

People

The film focuses on John F Kennedy's appointments secretary, Kenny O'Donnell (Kevin Costner). O'Donnell begins by establishing that he is an all-American hero, breakfasting with his 400 or so apple-cheeked children and flirting manfully with Jackie Kennedy. Though he was a member of Ex-Comm, the committee which advised Kennedy during the crisis, O'Donnell was a minor figure. It's conspicuously...