all day: Movies

“Dogma,” the latest from slacker auteur Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Chasing Amy”) finally opens after months of controversy. The clamor began earlier this year when the film, a comic fantasy about two fallen angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, no less) who try to worm their way back to heaven through an arcane loophole in church doctrine, came under a media firestorm led by the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights because the group believes the film to be anti-Catholic. Smith told The Times, “There is nothing in this movie that is blasphemous or heretical. C’mon man, we got angels flying around, we got demons with horns, a rubber poop monster; obviously this movie is not to be taken seriously.”

* “Dogma,” rated R for strong language including sex-related dialogue, violence, crude humor and some drug content, opens Friday in general release.

12:30 pm: Convention

Live re-creations of vintage radio shows featuring many original performers will help highlight the 16th annual SPERDVAC convention Friday through Sunday. The Society to Preserve and Encourage Radio Drama, Variety and Comedy will also present evening banquets, workshops, panel discussions and the sale of radio-related memorabilia.

* SPERDVAC Old Time Radio Convention, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 5985 W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles. Friday, 12:30 to 10:30 p.m.; Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 9 to 11:30 a.m. Complete convention package, $130; Friday dinner and program at 5:30 p.m., $45; Saturday daytime activities, $25; Saturday banquet and evening program at 5:30 p.m., $60. Sunday brunch and program at 9 a.m., $25. All activities before dinner on Friday and memorabilia dealers rooms throughout the convention, free admission. (562) 947-9800.

8 pm: Jazz

It’s jazz with a twang: Jazz and bluegrass, two musical traditions rich in technique and improvisation, get hitched when banjo player and “new grass” pioneer Bela Fleck and his futuristic Flecktones split the bill with mandolinist and “dawg jazz” champion David Grisman and his quintet.

* Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, David Grisman Quintet, Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., 8 p.m. $32 to $37.50. (213) 380-5005.

7:30 pm: Theater

Tony Abatemarco and others perform a rare staged reading of the landmark 1986 adaptation of “Plato’s Symposium,” translated by the late Paul Schmidt. The series of funny, provocative, contemporary monologues about “love” will be directed by the collaborative project’s initiator, David Schweizer.

* “Plato’s Symposium,” Getty Center, Harold M. Williams Auditorium, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A., 7:30 p.m. Free; reservations required. (310) 440-7300.

8 pm: Dance

As a son of the late Swedish ballet choreographer Birgit Cullberg, 54-year-old Mats Ek is a second-generation dance modernist. His mother specialized in psychosexual themes and Ek follows her precedent, but with a cryptic humor and sense of the surreal all his own. Hence the all-Ek double-header danced by the reliably daring Lyon Opera Ballet in its latest appearance on the UCLA dance series. First comes “Solo for Two” (1996, music by Arvo Part), an enigmatic duet with no explicit story line, and then the more conventionally dramatic “Carmen” (1992, to Rodion Shchedrin’s adaptation of Bizet). But don’t expect traditional rose-in-the-teeth operatics: This “Carmen” is Ek, not echt.

* “Carmen” and “Solo for Two,” Lyon Opera Ballet, Royce Hall, UCLA campus, Westwood. Friday and Saturday, 8 p.m. $13 (students) to $45. (310) 825-2101.

8:15 pm: Pop Music

Vicente Fernandez, Mexico’s ageless icon of ranchera music, returns with his customary evocation of his country’s romanticized past.

* Vicente Fernandez, Universal Amphitheatre, 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City. Friday through Sunday, 8:15 p.m. $58.50 and $63.50. (818) 622-4440.

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FREEBIES

Pasadena Art Night, a museum open house, will highlight exhibitions of the Armory Center, Art Center College of Design, Norton Simon Museum and Pasadena Art Space at One Colorado. 6 to 10 p.m. (626) 449-2742.

Drawings of costumes for films, including “Gone With the Wind,” will go on display at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, 8949 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills. Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon to 6 p.m. (310) 247-3600.