PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE/ROGER DODGER. As part of their “Not Nominated (by the Academy)” series, the Brattle is running two of last year’s most intelligent films as a double feature. Punch-Drunk Love, the latest triumph from director Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, Boogie Nights), is a shining comic love story with powerful, artifice-free turns from Adam Sandler and Emily Watson; Philip Seymour Hoffman also has a few funny moments as a crass Utah entrepreneur. Meanwhile, Roger Dodger follows a suave but immature ladies’ man (Campbell Scott, in one of the year’s best performances) through a night in New York City as he shows his high schooler nephew the city’s romantic ropes. Wednesday, April 16, with Roger Dodger showing at 5:30 and 9:45 p.m. and Punch-Drunk Love showing at 7:45 p.m. Tickets $8.50 (admits one to both films), $7.50 late show, $5.50 members, children and seniors. Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., (617) 876-6837. (BJS)

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. You have to see this one on the big screen at least once in your life, preferably late at night in a theater packed to capacity with unruly, appreciative misfits. I don’t know how unruly the late-night Brattle audience will be, but give the experience a shot regardless. This 1998 adaptation of writer Hunter S. Thompson’s gonzo opus was unjustly roasted when it premiered at Cannes and flopped at the box office in the same month, but its recent DVD release by the prestigious Criterion Collection is rehabilitating its reputation. Oh, and the film? Its a hilariously anarchic screed about the death of the sixties and the bankruptcy of polite society, starring Johnny Depp (sensational) and Benecio del Toro and featuring everybody from Cameron Diaz to Tobey Maguire. Tuesday, April 15 at 5, 7:30 and 10 p.m. Tickets $8.50, $5.50 members, children and seniors. Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St., (617) 876-6837. (BJS)

THE RAF’S GERMANY: TERRORISM, POLITICS, PROTEST. In association with Boston’s Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, the Film Archive is presenting a series of films influenced by the Red Army Faction’s (RAF) 1977 wave of terrorism in West Germany. Included in the series are The Legends of Rita, Volker Schlondorffs acclaimed 1999 film about a terrorist forced into hiding when her organization crumbles, and Marianne and Julianne, Margarethe von Trotta’s 1981 examination of the bond between two sisters—one of them an imprisoned revolutionary—during the time of the terrorism. Friday, April 11 through Tuesday, April 15. Tickets $7, $5 students and seniors. Harvard Film Archive, 24 Quincy St., (617) 495-4700. (BJS)

HARVARD SQUARE LOEWS

10 CHURCH ST., (617) 864-4580

ADAPTATION. At its core, Adaptation is an analysis of the intellectual diseases that plague every writer, from editorial pressure to sibling rivalry to unrequited love. But its narrative edges make it a unique experience. Nicolas Cage plays writer Charlie Kaufman (the real-life writer of the film), who becomes consumed by his assignment to adapt Susan Orlean’s meditative nonfiction novel The Orchid Thief and his own personal eccentricities. Like Kaufman and director Spike Jonze’s previous film Being John Malkovich, several plots overlap and intertwine with surprising at dramatic twists, creating a frustrating, complex film that is infinitely insightful and weirdly moving. Adaptation screens at 3:30 and 9:15 p.m. (CJF)

AMANDLA!  A new documentary on the role that song played in the battle against apartheid in South Africa, Amandla begins with the sight of children singing as they watch the exhumation and reburial of their executed father’s corpse. Closing with the sight of newly-elected president Nelson Mandela gleefully dancing amid throngs of followers, the film contrasts the violence of South Africa’s apartheid era with the humanity and emotion of both its Afrikaaner and black South African subjects. The movie tells the story of black South African freedom music and how it articulated and embodied the people’s spirit during the struggle to end apartheid. “Amandla,” the Xhosa word for “power,” was the rallying cry that activists used to punctuate the end of many songs. Amandla is a compilation of personal interviews, musical performances, reenactment and original clippings from newsreels and films of rallies. Images and songs are allowed to present themselves, appearing with minimal explanation and subtitles. The frames practically drip with color, as though every object within them bursts with an energy and vitality reflected by the nation as a whole. Amandla screens at 12:15, 3:15, 6:30 and 9 p.m. (JJH)

CHICAGO. The potential revival of the Hollywood musical is upon us with Chicago—for better or worse. Ignoring its politicized ramifications as a genre revival, Chicago on its own is a pretty wild ride, showcasing once and for all that the new school of glitzy film stars can sing better than Jennifer Lopez. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweger, and especially John C. Reilly are surprisingly watchable in this furiously edited, expensive adaptation of the murderous Broadway classic. Winner of this year’s Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing and Best Sound. Chicago screens at 12, 3, 6:45 and 9:30 p.m. (CJF)

COWBOY BEBOP. This anime entertainment from Japan has marked time alongside The Powerpuff Girls on the Cartoon Network, but otherwise the two series don’t have much in common. Cowboy Bebop’s celluloid incarnation avoids Powerpuff’s sugar-and-spice conceit in favor of a complex plot involving Martians, killer Macadamia nuts and pharmaceutical corporations. The film borrows copiously from a range of niche genres—action, romance, western and sci-fi, among others. It’s a shame that it isn’t a musical, too (“Bebop” is the name of the film’s spaceship), considering that it’s been decades since Paint Your Wagon wiped out the potentially entertaining future of the song-and-dance western, and it couldn’t hurt to try reviving the genre. Cowboy Bebop screens at 1, 4, 7:15 and 10 p.m. (BJS)

THE GOOD THIEF. Neil Jordan, who hasn’t directed a feature since 1999’s The End of the Affair, ends his absence with this heist film, based upon Jean-Pierre Melville’s jazzy 1955 noir Bob le Flambeur. Nick Nolte, who weathered a well-publicized DUI arrest last year, does nothing to rehabilitate his image by starring as a graying, heroin-addicted gambler who tries to rob a casino. Holding the film together are a passel of modern noir/heist elements—the prostitute, the chummy detective, the technology whiz, exotic locations and lush cinematography (in this case, by two-time Oscar winner Chris Menges, who did wonderfully evocative work on The Killing Fields). The Good Thief screens at 12:30, 3:45, 7 and 9:45 p.m. (BJS)

THE HOURS. This adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s Pulitzer-winning novel is unapologetically Oscar bait, backed by a triumvirate of A-list actresses (Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore). Yet for a film of its ostensible weight, The Hours certainly takes easy shots at its lead trio—three colossally boring straw women who rediscover their lost vitality in drearily obvious ways as the picture progresses. Perhaps The Hours’ greatest value rests in its side-by-side comparison of Moore, the greatest actress of her generation, and Streep, the most acclaimed actress of hers; when judged head-to-head, Moore ends up easily topping Streep, if for no other reason than that Streep persists in being an actress onscreen while Moore is content to be a person. Winner of this year’s Academy Award for Best Actress. The Hours screens at 12:45 and 6:15 p.m. (BJS)

KENDALL SQUARE CINEMA

ONE KENDALL SQ., (617) 494-9800

ASSASSINATION TANGO. Robert Duvall’s career as a film actor reads like a smorgasbord of human types; he’s played a surf-crazy colonel in Apocalypse Now, a conformist tightass in MASH, a fire-spitting preacher in The Apostle and everybody in between. He lets his feet do some of the talking as he stars in Assassination Tango, a dance-tinged character study armed with a title that explains its plot with TV Guide-caliber brevity (Duvall’s an assassin, and he tangos!). Duvall’s aging hitman, his hair yanked back in a low-hanging mini-ponytail, departs his Brooklyn pad for a job in Argentina, where he drinks in the local color. Duvall also directs and writes—the first time he’s done so since The Apostle six years ago. Assassination Tango screens at 1:55, 4:30, 7:05 and 9:45. (BJS)

BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM. This touching English comedy has won rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic for its humorous depiction of women’s soccer. Or, as the characters would say, football. The movie follows the trials and tribulations of an 18 year-old Sikh girl determined to pursue a career in professional football. Her incredible on-field talent, though, is not enough to convince her religiously orthodox parents to allow her to trade the kitchen for the football pitch. So, she runs away from her home in West London to move to Hamburg and follow her sporting dreams. A charming, light-hearted picture that will appeal to even those who are unfamiliar with papadums and penalty kicks. Bend It Like Beckham screens at 1:30, 2:10, 4:05, 4:45, 6:40, 7:20, 9:25 and 9:55 p.m. (ASAF)