Granted, Beyonce only gets to showcase one line as Etta James in this trailer of the upcoming Cadillac Records, but she delivers it with confidence. Will Beyonce surprise us in this film?

RIHANNA WANTS TO ACT Wildly popular albums and um-ba-rella lines are never enough these days. Rihanna is looking to achieve triple threat status. The Caribbean star just signed on to appear in Mama Black Widow, a screen adaptation of Iceberg Slim's book by the same name. She'll co-star with Kerry Washington, Macy Gray, Anthony Anderson, Mos Def, and Brian J. White. [SOHH]

FISHBURNE PRACTICES ALCHEMY Laurence Fishburne just signed on to star in and direct the big-screen adaptation of the best-selling novel, The Alchemist.

In other Fishburne news, he won a Drama Desk award this weekend for his portayal of Thurgood Marshall in the Broadway play, Thurgood. Passing Strange, a play about a black bohemian in search of new experiences, won for best musical.

Considering the fact that Puffy probably thinks that no one can ever really accurately capture the essence of Sean Combs in the Voletta Wallace-produced Biggie biopic, Notorious, it probably means a lot that he says that Derek Luke is so good in the role that it scared him and he had to leave the set. "He was acting just like me," he told MTV. Now that he has his Hollywood star, Diddy's finally able to wrap his head around this whole acting thing.

HASTA LA VISTA COMMON Common's continuing to beef up his IMDB page with a role in the new Terminator film, Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. He'll play a freedom fighter alongside Christian Bale, who stars as a grown-up John Conner. [AHH]

Tennessee, Mariah Carey's second film since 2001's infamous Glitter, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival Saturday. In the film, directed produced by Lee Daniels (Monster's Ball), Carey plays a "diner waitress who has demons to flee and singing dreams to pursue." Oh, boy! Of course there were persistent negative rumors about Carey's diva demands during the making of the movie — I wonder if the critical reviews will be as consistently negative.

For the sake of Halle Berry's movie reviews, let's hope that having a baby opened up a previously untapped emotional for the actress. She just signed on to star in and produce her first post-Nahla movie. The film, Frankie & Alice, is about a woman with multiple personality disorder; one of her personalities is a racist white person. Berry, of course, plays the mentally ill woman. It sounds like the sort of drama that could be unintentionally humorous if it's not done well. So let's hope it's done well. [E!]

Is intolerance of interracial relationships the theme of the month? Check out the new trailer for the Samuel L. Jackson and Kerry Washington thriller, Lakeview Terrace, about a cop who doesn't like it when a black woman and her white husband move into the neighborhood. As much as I love Kerry W., I think I'll probably wait until this comes on HBO.

I watched the trailer for Eddie Murphy's new movie, Meet Dave, with a completely straight face. Actually, I might have been grimacing. I don't know, and I'm not going to watch the video again to find out. Let me know if you crack a smile.