Best Bets

Movies

Two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster, above, returns to the screen for the first time in nearly three years in David Fincher’s thriller “Panic Room.” Foster plays a newly divorced woman who, with her young daughter, moves into a New York brownstone. They soon find themselves prisoners in the house’s high-security “safe” room during a home invasion robbery. Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto play the bad guys. Opens Friday.

Also: High school science teacher Jim Morris’ improbable rise to the major leagues as a 35-year-old left-handed relief pitcher for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays is the basis for the feel-good drama “The Rookie.” Dennis Quaid stars as the southpaw, with Rachel Griffiths (from HBO’s “Six Feet Under”) as his wife. Opens Friday.

Theater

Meet the Collyer brothers, famous early 20th century American eccentrics. One is a successful pianist who rarely performs and is prone to squandering the family fortune; the other is trying to stop him. Meanwhile, a growing pile of rubbish is filling their Park Avenue mansion in “The Dazzle,” Richard Greenberg’s tender, humorous new play. A West Coast premiere, it opens Friday at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Pop Music

Two of South America’s most potent musical forces are the highlights of the annual Viva Fest today at the Universal Amphitheatre. Colombia’s Carlos Vives, below, has hit a rich artistic vein with his reinvention of his nation’s vallenato style, while his countryman Juanes was the breakthrough name at the latest Latin Grammys with his confessional pop-rock-folk blend. Also on the bill: Laura Pausini, La Mosca, Ora Solido and Luis Fonsi.

Music

Percussionist Evelyn Glennie is the soloist when L.A. Philharmonic associate conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya returns to the orchestra for performances Thursday and Saturday in L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Glennie plays Joseph Schwantner’s Concerto for Percussion, written in 1994 for the 150th anniversary of the New York Philharmonic. Harth-Bedoya conducts the Philharmonic’s first performance of John Harbison’s four-movement, 18-minute piece, “The Most Often Used Chords,” and Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony.

Art

“A Treasury of 15th Century Manuscript Illumination,” opening Tuesday at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Brentwood, celebrates the art of illumination in Western Europe during a period when princes and nobles collected illustrated manuscript copies of historical and spiritual texts. The installation will feature 26 manuscripts from the Getty’s collection, including works by Jean Fouquet, Simon Marmion and Taddeo Crivelli.

Jazz

L.A.’s jazz week will include the fine saxman Kenny Garrett Tuesday through Sunday at the Catalina Bar & Grill in Hollywood; on those same nights, clarinetist Eddie Daniels and pianist Fred Hersch perform at the Jazz Bakery in Culver City.

Video

Psychiatrist Jeff Bridges tries to discover if Kevin Spacey has flown over the cuckoo’s nest in “K-PAX.” Spacey plays the newest resident of a mental hospital who claims he is an alien from a planet called K-PAX. Arrives Tuesday on VHS and DVD.