Steven Spielberg's E.T. may have premiered on DVD this week, but watching it at home you miss the surge of group feeling that you experience in a theater because of how lovingly Spielberg focuses an audience's attention on the most benign alien in movie history. So the Senator Theatre is offering a great pre-Halloween gift with its free screening of E.T. today at noon, preceded by its annual costume parade (co-sponsored by the Belvedere Improvement Association). No advance tickets required.

Scary 'Unknown'

Also at noon today, the Charles' Saturday revival series presents fear-master Tod Browning's creepiest teaming with horror icon Lon Chaney: the 1927 silent classic The Unknown. It stars Chaney as an armless knife thrower in a carnival, who's really a killer on the lam. When he falls in love with the sexy young Joan Crawford, disaster ensues. Admission: $5.

Trials of Kissinger

Cinema Sundays at the Charles tomorrow screens The Trials of Henry Kissinger, an indictment of the former secretary of state that Elvis Mitchell has said "would more aptly be called The Conviction of Kissinger, because just about every on-camera statement is as convincing as the trail of information uncovered by the merciless detectives on C.S.I." For his part, series honcho Gabe War- dell puckishly compares it to a Kid Stays in the Picture sequel - remember how palsy-walsy Kissinger was with Robert Evans? Coffee and bagels: 9:45 a.m. Movie: 10:35 a.m. Admission: $15.