THE LIFE OF DAVID GALE. Kevin Spacey stars as Professor David Gale, an anti-death penalty crusader accused of murdering a fellow activist (Laura Linney) in this issue movie from Alan Parker (Angela’s Ashes). Once Gale reaches death row, he gives his side of the story to an ambitious reporter (Kate Winslet). The film’s trio of Oscar darlings and hot social topic should lend some class and relevance, respectively, to the reportedly twist-heavy story. The Life of David Gale screens at 12, 3, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. (BJS)

KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA

ONE KENDALL SQ., (617) 494-9800

BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE. Michael Moore’s quintessential documentary on red-neck Americana and its political basis has turned more heads in curiosity than a gun show in Harvard Square would. Criticized for its self-indulgence and questionable objectivity, Bowling for Columbine is nonetheless a dazzling example of the power of politically charged cinema. Probably the most talked-about film of the year, Bowling for Columbine effectively condenses nearly a decade of American history into a digestible, moving meditation on the sources of American gun violence. That’s no small feat. Bowling for Columbine screens at 4:30 and 9:50 p.m. (CJF)

CITY OF GOD. Brazilian Fernando Meirelles’ high-energy depiction of gang warfare in the titular Rio de Janeiro slum has been met with critical raves and comparisons to the mob pictures of Martin Scorsese. The protagonist, a young photographer named Rocket, succeeds in evading the gang lifestyle; his childhood friend fails to follow suit, instead succumbing to the temptations of crime and power. Dynamic, darkly funny and spitting electricity, City of God presents a strife-ridden world lurching towards destruction. City of God screens at 1, 3:50, 6:40 and 9:35 p.m. (BJS)

HE LOVES ME, HE LOVES ME NOT. Audrey Tautou, whose titular role in Amelie spurred countless critics to rediscover the word “gamine,” turns her wide eyes and mischievous smile to service the Fatal Attraction scenario of this French thriller. The film begins from Tautou’s perspective, charting her imagined affair with a French cardiologist, before it replays the same events from the cardiologist’s more lucid viewpoint. What emerges from thismultiple-perspective tale is a study of romantic delusion that owes more to Rashomon than to the latest Sandra Bullock product. He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not screens at 2:30, 4:50, 7:20 and 9:40 p.m. (BJS)

IRREVERSIBLE. See preview. Irreversible screens at 2:40, 5, 7:30 and 10 p.m.

LOST IN LA MANCHA. Visionary director Terry Gilliam’s ill-fated recent effort to make a Don Quixote movie is chronicled in this new documentary. After a difficult pre-production period, Gilliam’s film is slapped with a malicious case of Murphy’s Law once it begins shooting. Six days of location work, flash floods, screaming jets and an injured star force the production to shut down, leaving insurance agents to smooth over the chaos and Gilliam fans to ponder what might have been. Jeff Bridges, who starred in Gilliam’s The Fisher King, narrates. Lost in La Mancha screens at 2:20 and 7:40 p.m. (BJS)

THE PIANIST. Adrien Brody’s magnetic, largely silent performance in Roman Polanski’s Holocaust drama almost compensates for The Pianist’s inconsistent tone and distasteful political sensibilities. Brody’s Wladek Szpilman, who could hardly have picked a worse time and place to be Jewish, transforms from cocky concert pianist to starving phantom hunted by Nazis after escaping death in the bombed-out ghetto. The film soars briefly as it reflects on the redemptive power of music and the Szpilman’s commitment to survival; it stumbles badly in its misleading depiction of universally heroic Poles and in its sympathy for an officer of Hitler’s vicious army to the east. The Pianist screens at 2:50, 6 and 9:10 p.m. (NKB)

THE QUIET AMERICAN. Michael Caine is garnering some of the best reviews of his career for his role as a hardened journalist in this adaptation of Graham Greene’s novel. The film, set in 1950s Vietnam, pits Caine against Brendan Fraser’s undercover American spy as Fraser vies for the affections of Caine’s Vietnamese mistress (Do Thi Hai Yen). Fraser’s intervention in the romance is intended to parallel the film’s other plot—a commentary on the early American efforts to eradicate communism in Vietnam. Christopher Hampton (Dangerous Liaisons) and Robert Schenkkan adapt Greene’s book, while Phillip Noyce (Rabbit-Proof Fence) directs. The Quiet American screens at 2, 4:20, 6:55 and 9:15 p.m. (BJS)

RIVERS AND TIDES. A documentary about erosion may sound as appetizing as a plate piled high with General Wong’s Chicken, but filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer has apparently met the challenge and created an erosion movie worth seeing. Rivers and Tides tracks artist Andy Goldsworthy, a Scottish sculptor of what he dubs “earthworks,” organic creations positioned in a fashion and location that leaves them vulnerable to the elements. Works of stone, ice and wood are placed on land or in the sea in such a way that they are beaten into uselessness or oblivion. Sounds like an Ingmar Bergman PBS documentary. Rivers and Tides screens at 1:50, 4:10, 6:45 and 9 p.m. (BJS)

RUSSIAN ARK. The latest film from Russian director Alexander Sokurov uses 2,000 actors and thirty-five rooms of The Hermitage museum to bring 300 years of Russian history to life. Even more astonishingly, the film is presented in one single 95 minute, continuous, unedited, technologically and artistically miraculous SteadiCam shot. Critical awe—from Roger Ebert to the Village Voice (in which it appeared on five of six critics’ top-ten lists for 2002) —has followed wherever it goes. Russian Ark screens at 2:10, 4:40, 7:05 and 9:20 p.m. (LAA)

TALK TO HER. With Golden Globes and the Oscars just around the corner, the only recognition that Pedro Almodovar’s pretentious Talk to Her deserves is as the year’s most overrated film. Though beautifully shot and populated with a set of unusually complicated characters, Talk to Her shamelessly and outrageously asks its audience to sympathize with a rapist. The film manages, paradoxically, to be both sloppily edited and deadeningly self-conscious. As it progresses, the audience is slowly but surely ushered into a stupor very closely resembling that of the coma victim at the story’s inane center. Talk to Her screens at 1:10, 4, 7:10 and 9:55 p.m. (NKB)

—Happening was compiled by Tiffany I. Hsieh ’04, Ryan J. Kuo ’04, Benjamin J. Soskin ’04, Nathan K. Burstein ’04, Clint J. Froehlich ’05, Ashley Aull ’06, Christopher W. Platts ’06, Samuel H. Perwin ’04, Ben B. Chung ’06, Julia E. Twarog ’05 and Thomas J. Clarke ’04.