Flashes: December 20, 1991

MOVIES:
It seems Christian Slater is a Trekker with the right kind of connections. About halfway through Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, he appears as an ensign, first only in silhouette, speaks three perfunctory lines of dialogue, and is gone. The 20-second unbilled cameo gives the young actor (Mobsters) a chance to Trek with the original cast in what might be their last installment. How did he get the job? He contacted the film's casting director, who just happened to be his mother, Mary Jo Slater, who beamed him aboard.

This Boy's Life, Tobias Wolff's acclaimed coming-of-age memoir about his childhood with an itinerant mother and a hostile stepfather, has been passed from hand to hand in Hollywood since its publication in 1989. Cameras are finally set to roll, starting in late February. Ellen Barkin and Robert De Niro will take the starring roles, with Michael Caton-Jones (Doc Hollywood, Memphis Belle) directing.

TV:
Columbia Pictures Television is shooting a half-hour sitcom pilot, Outta My Face, starring rap princesses Monie Love and Queen Latifah in the latter's old 'hood, Jersey City. ''It's about two street-tough Jersey girls having fun living on their own,'' says writer-executive producer Gina Wendkos. ''It's sort of a modern Laverne & Shirley. Or That Girl.'' Wendkos hopes Outta My Face will follow Fresh Prince of Bel-Air this fall on NBC

No writing-producing duo is hotter this season than Joshua Brand and John Falsey, the pair who created two much-praised shows, CBS' Northern Exposure and NBC's new drama I'll Fly Away. The team is planning to launch a third program next fall. The ABC drama, Offshore Medical, will focus on medical students at a run-down school on a small Caribbean island.

MUSIC:
Just when you thought it was safe to buy a boxed set, here comes Onobox, a 6-CD, 105-song anthology of the iconoclastic career of Yoko Ono. Out in February on Rykodisc (priced around $80), the set will include songs from albums both with and without John Lennon, a 96-page booklet, and an entire unreleased solo album, A Story, recorded during the Lennons' 1973-74 separation. Rykodisc executive manager David Greenberg says Ono is prepared for public jokes about the collection but adds, ''Like most skeptics, I was thinking, 'Does her music deserve this treatment?' And I was wonderfully surprised. It doesn't sound that far out now; we've caught up with her.''

— Kenneth M. Chanko, Mark Harris, Tim Appelo, David Browne