Premieres

A trailer for "The Host" -- the new book-to-movie project by "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer -- premiered right around the time that moviegoers were taking their seats for the first screening of"The Hunger Games. " Why is this news? "The Host" doesn't open in theaters until March 29. Of 2013. Is this all a coincidence? We think not. It wasn't all that long ago that Meyer was pretty much the reigning princess of young adult literature with her wildly successful "Twilight" trilogy-turned-film phenomenon.

As a die-hard Arsenal fan growing up in north London, and later as a standout defender for three English Premier League teams, Warren Barton learned to look forward to the final day of the Premier League season with equal parts fear and joy. On no other day in no other sport is there more on the line than on English soccer's Relegation Sunday. It's the day when the Barclays Premier League champion is crowned, when four teams qualify for the UEFA Champions League and at least one other goes on to the UEFA Europa League.

Two world premieres and a Southern California premiere will highlight the 1994-95 chamber music series at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. The series will consist of five concerts, one more than in past seasons. New works by Stephen L. Mosko and by vibraphonist Lyle Mays, a jazz musician known for his membership in the Pat Metheny Group, will receive their first performances Oct. 22 and Nov. 10, respectively. Olivier Messiaen's Piece for Piano and Strings will also be heard Oct.

Gabriela Lena Frank's "The Singing Mountaineer" is fond, alluring music that sounds like a vivid memory of a place that doesn't exist. It was written for the Los Angeles Master Chorale and the Los Angeles-based Latin American folk/jazz ensemble Huayucaltia and given its world premiere at Walt Disney Concert Hall Sunday night as part of a program that focused on the choral music of Peru and Venezuela. The South American sound is usually pretty easy to identify. And 10 of the 11 works that Master Chorale music director Grant Gershon selected easily fit that bill.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad shrugged off criticism and repeated his charge that Jews controlled the world, adding that he also was worried about Christian fundamentalists in the Bush administration. But Mahathir told the Bangkok Post that his remarks last week had been taken out of context, noting that in his speech he had urged Israelis and Arabs to stop killing each other.

According to a note in the program for Lorna Luft's "Songs My Mother Taught Me," closing today at the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills, the "original production premiered May 28, 1999 -- Atlantic City." Articles in New Jersey newspapers at the time and that version's press release also referred to its "world premiere" at the Atlantic City Hilton.

The Scene: Friday night's premiere of "The Player," Robert Altman's new movie from Fine Line Features, held at the Directors' Guild of America with a dessert buffet following. The film is a brutally funny look at that amoral fungus known as a Hollywood executive--the only species of executive on Earth that commutes to work in a four-wheel-drive vehicle equipped with a car fax. In Robert Altman tradition, it's also studded with cameos by everyone in Hollywood except Macaulay Culkin and Angelyne.

It can be rough being young and popular in Hollywood. The night after the 61st Academy Awards presentation, there was Carrie Hamilton, a performer in the up-and-comers production number, out on the town again. "I'm exhausted," she said at the premiere of the movie "Sing." "Everybody from last night still has their makeup on--you go to sleep propped up," the actress, dressed in shredded jeans, joked. "But I thought, 'I'm so tired, I wonder if anyone else is going to show up.'

Great expectations? Or the annual cynical interest in the new TV season? What else can explain why viewers, disappointed time and again, tune in the networks to check them out once more as each fall season begins? Consider this week. Just about everyone in TV knew that the "Murphy Brown" pregnancy story and the revamped cast of "Designing Women" would kick off the official 1991-92 ratings competition in a big way. Which they did on Monday, the season's opening night.

GEORGE CLOONEY, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon -- need we say more? Hours before the red carpet waltz got underway for the premiere of "Ocean's 13," the movie's stars immortalized their hand and shoe prints in cement outside Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Tuesday. The three amigos and the film's producer, Jerry Weintraub, posed for about 100 photographers and smiled and waved to several hundred onlookers, a number that was sure to swell by day's end.

ISTANBUL, Turkey - The Turks have a blockbuster on their hands. It's called "Fetih 1453," as in the year the Turks conquered the Byzantine capital of Constantinople - now the sprawling city of Istanbul. This epic, with 16,000 extras, sword fights, tons of blood and turbans galore, has broken all film records in Turkey, not only in how much it cost to make ($17 million) - but also the box office take, more than double the investment and counting. Millions have seen the film since it opened in February - the premiere of which was an afternoon matinee that began at 14:53 p.m. in theaters around the country (the film opened Friday in Los Angeles)

"Headhunters,"the new Norwegian thriller based on the novel of the same name by Jo Nesbo, tells the story of a wealthy but insecure executive recruiter who moonlights as an art thief to support his posh lifestyle. Years before "Headhunters" was an international box office success or a bestselling book, Nesbo was living his own double life as a stockbroker at the Oslo Stock Exchange and rock musician with the band Di Derre (translation: "those guys"). "I was seen as this sort of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," said Nesbo, 52, on the phone from his native Oslo.

A girl almost dies from an "accidental" overdose of pills, forcing her appalled parents into the uncomfortable exercise of examining their own empty marriage. When the girl sees her mother with a strange man, obviously her lover, she sets out to learn who this interloper is, "stalking" the stranger and introducing herself to him under an assumed identity. But her hostility for her mother's paramour soon turns into fascination. As a set-up, that's not half-bad. Initially, Octavio Solis' new musical "Cloudlands," now in its world premiere on South Coast Repertory's Julianne Argyros Stage, seems a straightforward drama about adolescent alienation, parental failings and the yearning for home -- not as the flawed and loveless surroundings of the troubled teen protagonist, but as an idealized haven in an inimical world.

As "American Idol" winds down its 11th season, it's time to ask: Is Fox's smash singing contest losing the kids? For years, "Idol" was TV's unrivaled ratings champ, and a big part of its success lay in its appeal to young people, who made it their No. 1 TV choice for years. But this year, critics are attacking the show as increasingly stodgy while viewership has plunged more than 30% among teens and 20-somethings. And many of those viewers have gone to NBC's "The Voice," a hipper and sexier upstart that has much younger judges and often edgier songs.

Toward the end of the first episode of HBO's "Girls," Hannah (Lena Dunham), in the hopes of persuading her parents to continue supporting her, hands them the half-dozen pages of the "book" she has been writing for the last two years. To finish this proposed nine-chapter opus, all she wants is $1,100 a month, for two more years. It's a wonderful moment, capturing the inevitable divide between generations. With all the gloriously narcissistic conviction of an academically coddled, white, upper-middle-class publishing "intern," Hannah truly believes she is writing a memoir - she just has to live it first.

The X-Flight coaster coming in May to Six Flags Great America will take riders seated in a winged formation through a near-miss keyhole fly-through that serves as the new ride's signature element. PHOTOS: X-Flight wing coaster at Six Flags Great America Themed to look like a stealth fighter jet, the new wing coaster at the Chicago-area amusement park will feature trains with seats that straddle the track, giving riders the sensation of having nothing above or below them.

The sixth annual Palm Springs International Film Festival opens Jan. 5 with the Australian film "Muriel's Wedding," starring Toni Collette as a young woman in search of her Prince Charming. This year's 10-day festival will present more than 100 films, highlighted by 10 world premieres and more than 20 North American or U.S. premieres. Among the key films to be shown are "Strawberry & Chocolate," "Camilla," "Tom & Viv," Diane Kurys' "Six Days, Six Nights" and "The Last Good Time."

Hollywood loves to hold movie premieres in unusual places -- on aircraft carriers, in Disneyland, inside Alcatraz. Michael Moore decided to unveil his new healthcare documentary "Sicko" in a locale few studio executives have ever visited: skid row. On Monday night, Moore and distributor the Weinstein Co. screened "Sicko" on the street in front of the Union Rescue Mission. About 200 clients of the mission and other homeless people attended the screening, which included free popcorn and sodas.

A trailer for "The Host" -- the new book-to-movie project by "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer -- premiered right around the time that moviegoers were taking their seats for the first screening of"The Hunger Games. " Why is this news? "The Host" doesn't open in theaters until March 29. Of 2013. Is this all a coincidence? We think not. It wasn't all that long ago that Meyer was pretty much the reigning princess of young adult literature with her wildly successful "Twilight" trilogy-turned-film phenomenon.

Carl St.Clair, the music director and principal conductor of Orange Country's Pacific Symphony, was a bit taken aback at one of the programming choices for the 2012 edition of the organization's American Composers Festival. This year's theme is "Nowruz — Celebrating Spring," marking the Persian New Year and celebrating the prominent Iranian American community and its vast cultural legacy. There's a world premiere of an oratorio by Iranian American composer Richard Danielpour and collaborations between the symphony and Persian music troupe the Shams Ensemble.