Queen Latifah

SUN SCORE: *1/2 HOLLYWOOD - The Cookout is half-baked. It starts out on a promising satirical note as likable Todd Anderson (portrayed by Storm P) becomes the New Jersey Nets' No. 1 NBA draft pick and signs a $30 million contract. He assures his no-nonsense mother Lady Em (Jenifer Lewis) that he's not going to change, but prompted by his gold-digging girlfriend Brittany (Meagan Good), he goes on an epic spending spree that includes a mansion with seven bedrooms and 10 baths in a gated community.

Billy Wilder said that what Greta Garbo and Marilyn Monroe had was "that strange trick of flesh impact - that is to say, their flesh registered for the camera and came across on the screen as real flesh that you could touch." In Barbershop 2: Back in Business, director Kevin Rodney Sullivan finds that same "flesh impact" in the new gal on the block, Queen Latifah, and the returning cast (female and male) of the 2002 hit about a South Side, Chicago barbershop. He guides them with such intimate assurance that they envelop audiences in the warmth of a small, tight-knit and joyous body politic.

To make sure everyone gets the opportunity to see Annika Sorenstam play golf with the "boys" in the Bank of America Colonial, USA Network has decided to expand its live coverage today and Friday. Today's coverage will be from 9:58 a.m. to 3 p.m., resuming at 4 p.m. and going to the end of Round 1. Friday's coverage will begin at 2:30 p.m. and continue until the end of Round 2. The channel will offer highlights of Sorenstam's history-making week on PGA Tour Sunday (11 a.m.-noon). At a glance The O'Keefes (8:30 p.m.-9 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54)

Bringing Down the House is a gut-busting black-and-white culture clash comedy. It's not elegantly done. Some of the acting is too broad to enjoy. It has plot problems and racial-stereotype problems. And truth be told, Disney is not the studio you'd expect to try to get jiggy with it. Disney's comedies with black actors have often had an unpleasant aftertaste. But that's kind of the point. The first truly funny movie of 2003 plays the race card, often to hilarious effect. In this corner - Peter, an uptight divorced white lawyer, played by the perfectly cast Steve Martin.

Queen Latifah can get a Golden Globe nomination with one musical number tied behind her back. She had to, since one of her big musical numbers in Chicago, which opened Friday and earned her a best supporting actress nomination, was dumped. "Class" is one of the crowd-pleasing numbers in the Broadway show on which Chicago is based, and you can spot the moment when Latifah and Catherine Zeta-Jones are about to sing it, but then the movie cuts away from them. "We shot it, we shot it," assures Latifah, by phone.

When did serial killing become a creative outlet?Movie serial killers are getting so elaborate that I half-expect Martha Stewart to inaugurate a new section of her magazine. It'll be called "Murdering," and it'll be devoted to decorating with letters and images clipped from newspapers and setting up sicko scavenger hunts to baffle smarty-pants detectives.In "The Bone Collector," Denzel Washington plays a smarty-pants detective, an ex-cop named Rhyme. An on-the-job accident left him motionless except for his neck and a finger, with which he operates a computer.

Is Billie Holiday one of the 100 greatest women of rock and roll?What about Mahalia Jackson? Tammy Wy-nette? Ella Fitzgerald?Not rock and rollers, you say? Well, what do you know? Because each of these legendary singers has a place in VH1's "100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll," a five-part series airing on the cable channel this week.Jazz singer Holiday, in fact, is No. 6 on the list, perched right between singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell (No. 5) and Pretenders leader Chrissie Hynde (No. 7)

There is a scene in the CBS miniseries "Mama Flora's Family" that features Flora Palmer (Cicely Tyson) at age 69 walking into a Tennessee coffee shop, attempting to integrate its lunch counter.As the scene started to unfold, my first thought was that I'd been here before. And I had, with Tyson as Miss Jane Pittman integrating a water fountain in the acclaimed 1974 made-for-TV movie, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman."And the model for Pittman, according to director John Korty, was Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on a bus.You might think that's bad: television just recycling the same stories over and over, seemingly with no new ideas.

Here's how you spot a movie star: No matter how many actors are on the screen with her, no matter how much more technically prepared they may be, she commands the viewer's attention. When she's on, you never want her to leave; if she does, you want her to come back. The camera loves her; the movie curls up and dies without her.All of that describes Queen Latifah. Unfortunately, she is not the star of "Living Out Loud," Richard LaGravenese's contemporary romantic drama. That role is played by Holly Hunter, who delivers an oddly uneven performance of a recently divorced woman striking out on her own in New York.

HOLLYWOOD -- "Hey, Dana! How've you been?"Queen Latifah walks through the doors of Intermezzo, her favorite Melrose eatery, and warmly hugs Scotty Weber, the Italian restaurant's chef. Waiters and busboys also call her by her given name. "They spoil me here," she says with a wide smile.When the pressure's on and her stomach growls, Latifah often stops here, a place that offers her more than her favorite Caesar salad in Los Angeles. Intermezzo is her sanctuary, a place where she neither has to shoulder the responsibility of being in the public eye as the head of a rap management company, as a Grammy-winning rap artist, or as Khadijah, the lead character of Fox's popular sitcom "Living Single."