This Week’s Day-by-Day Picks

Thursday, April 3

El Centro Su Teatro’s five-year-old XicanIndie Film Festival, now a joint venture with the Denver Film Society, continues to mature and grow. That’s a good sign for both the film community and the Latino community: This year’s four-day event, under the direction of local filmmaker and artist Daniel Salazar, squeezes in everything Latin and visual that it possibly can, from works by students and the best in Chicano independents to a reverent Luis Buñuel retrospective. The fest opens tonight at the Starz FilmCenter, 900 Auraria Parkway, with a Denver premiere screening of the Spanish film Mondays in the Sun; a bit of fun is also featured, including tonight’s post-film dance party at Sevilla. Tickets to individual screenings are $6 to $8, or $12 for selected film/reception events (a $25 festival pass, which includes admission to four films and all receptions, is also available). For tickets in advance, call 303-296-0219, 303-820-3456 or 303-296-0219; for a complete schedule, log on to www.suteatro.org or www.denverfilm.org.

Film buffs can also get a look inside the filmmaking process when Naropa University hosts director Frederick Marx (Hoop Dreams) tonight in Boulder for a screening of Boys to Men?, a work in progress. Boys to Men?, the second installment of a trilogy about challenges facing urban teens that began with the acclaimed basketball documentary Hoop Dreams, follows three fifteen-year-old boys, one Jewish, one African-American and one Latino, over a nine-month period. The benefit screening — for diversity activities at Naropa — is at 7 p.m. at Magnolia Crossroads Commons Cinema, 2985 Pearl Street, Boulder; for tickets, $8 to $10, call 303-245-4614 or 303-245-4625. Marx will also teach a day-long intensive seminar, Anatomy of a Documentary, on April 5; for more information, call 303-245-4800.

Friday, April 4

Did you ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at a veterinary hospital? Wonder no more: At the annual James L. Voss Veterinary Teaching Hospital Open House in Fort Collins, you’ll be treated to a firsthand look at one of the nation’s most progressive animal hospitals, as well as the home of CSU’s touted veterinary program. From 9 to 4 today and tomorrow, guests can tour the hospital’s new Argus wing, which houses the Flint Animal Cancer Center (the largest such research and care facility in the world) and Shipley Natural Healing Center. Presentations, demonstrations and a Stump-a-Vet booth are all ongoing throughout the event, while kids can pony up to a petting zoo and more. The center is at 300 West Drake Road in the college town up north. Admission is free; call 1-970-491-7053 or log on to www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/ openhouse.html.

The word on Becky Mode’s hit comedy Fully Committed is that it’s uproariously funny. And the one-man tour de force about an out-of-work actor manning the reservation line for a too-chic Manhattan restaurant requires a special kind of actor: one who can handle the challenges of portraying forty characters, all jockeying for a table. East Coast actor Tyson Lien takes on the task, beginning tonight at 8 at the Dairy Center for the Arts, 2590 Walnut Street, Boulder, in the inaugural production of TigerLion Works. Shows continue weekends through April 12. For show times and tickets, call 303-440-7826 or log on to www.thedairy.org.

Just ask Big Brother: Artificial intelligence and creative mechanization are all the rage, even in the arts. The trend is evidenced by two gallery shows opening tonight on the fringes of LoDo. At Andenken Gallery, 2110 Market Street, sculptor Joseph Riché (a local robotics wizard and mastermind of the multimedia Motoman Project) presents the Third Annual Kinetic and Robot Show, a group exhibition featuring found-object Frankensteins that spit sparks, lurch and perform tricks. The event opens with a reception from 6 to 10 and continues through April 26; call 303-332-5582 or log on to www.andenken.com. And should you require further creeping out, the Cordell Taylor Gallery, 2350 Lawrence Street, hosts Panopticon 21, a mixed-media installation by the iMiNiMi collective — an artistic quartet that includes locals Rick Visser, Roger Rapp, Kent Smith and Bug — exploring the invasive world of surveillance. The show continues through May 3; folks attending tonight’s opening reception from 6 to 9 should be forewarned: The cameras will be running, so please don’t pick your nose. For details, call 303-296-0927.

Saturday, April 5

Go for the Gooooo-aaaaal!!! Another soccer season is about to dawn for the Colorado Rapids, and this team is so ready that they want to share their enthusiasm right now: It’s Rapids Week 2003, a whirlwind catchall of daily events leading up to the April 12 home opener against San Jose. The week begins with tonight’s sports event for the truly rabid, the Rapids Midnight 4×4 Soccer Tournament, an all-night amateur competition and wild party that features a hundred teams in 3 divisions. They’ll compete tonight through dawn at Invesco Field; then the festivities continue, culminating with a midday Rapids Downtown Pep Rally from 11 to 2 on April 9 at the Denver Pavilions, 500 16th Street. In between? Nothing but kicks and more kicks: Call 303-299-1599, log on to www.coloradorapids.com or see the sports listings beginning on page 40 for more information.

Sunday, April 6

Local art entrepreneur and television auteur Joshua Hassel is at it again, this time blending his twin cultural capacities to produce MuseumMuseum, a public-television series that’s designed to explore some of the Midwest’s smaller and more eclectic exhibit spaces. The pilot features host Warren Kelly at Denver’s Vance Kirkland Museum. For Hassel, it’s just the beginning — he hopes to complete six more episodes — but you can get a hook on his intentions by tuning in to KBDI-TV/Channel 12 tonight at 8.

Monday, April 7

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science continues to explore the legacy of chimp champion Jane Goodall — already the subject of a new blockbuster exhibit and IMAX film currently on display — with a special presentation: Behind the Scenes: The Making of Jane Goodall’s Wild Chimpanzees. The show features IMAX producer Mike Day in person; he will preside over screenings and discussions about the film today at 8:30 a.m. and 7 p.m. at the museum, 2001 Colorado Boulevard. For reservations and tickets, $6 to $13, call 303-322-7009 or log on to www.dmns.org.

Tuesday, April 8

Here’s a whole new dimension of armchair travel, where fictional wanderlust provides the fuel: This spring’s seven-week Denver Art Museum Film Series, America on the Road, is devoted to some of classic cinema’s greatest road pictures. The series begins tonight at 7 with John Ford’s towering black-and-white adaptation of John Steinbeck’s masterpiece Dust Bowl-era tract, The Grapes of Wrath, starring Henry Fonda, John Carradine and that mother figure of all mother figures, Jane Darwell, as Okie matriarch Ma Joad. The series continues weekly on Tuesdays, and curator Tom Delapa will introduce a diverse trip through the last century with films that include everything from comedies such as Sullivan’s Travels to seminal period pieces like Easy Rider. They’ll be shown at the Acoma Center, 1080 Acoma Street; admission is $7 to $8 per film or $40 to $45 for the series. Call 303-623-0524 for single tickets or 720-913-0105 for series tickets and information.

Wednesday, April 9

Mime has a bad reputation, it’s true, but there’s nothing precious or cloying about Marcel Marceau, the genre’s acknowledged master. At age eighty, he keeps on ticking with the same wonderful grace, wordless humor and rhythm that’s distinguished his act for as long as we can remember. Marceau performs tonight and tomorrow at 8 at the Buell Theatre, 14th and Curtis streets; to reserve tickets, $15 to $55, call 303-893-4100 or log on to www.denvercenter.org.