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TROPHY TIME Even the usually unsung stunt performers now have their own awards show. The Taurus Awards, now in their second year, were handed out Sunday at Santa Monica's Barker Hangar. ''The Fast and the Furious'' won five awards, mostly for its displays of stunt driving, followed by ''Rush Hour 2,'' which won three trophies, including Best Fight and Best High Work. ''A Knight's Tale'' won two awards, Best Work With an Animal and Hardest Hit. Honorary Awards for career achievement were given to Jackie Chan, explosion-minded director Michael Bay (''Pearl Harbor''), and stuntman Buddy Van Horn, best known for his work on countless Clint Eastwood films. The ceremony, which included onstage recreations of several stunts, was taped for broadcast on ABC on May 31.

SOUND BITES He's free -- free fallin'. Howie Epstein, who's been the bassist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers for 20 years, has parted ways with the band. The band wouldn't comment on the split beyond a cryptic allusion in a statement on Thursday to Epstein's ''ongoing personal problems.'' That's an apparent reference to Epstein's arrest last year with his companion, singer Carlene Carter in New Mexico in what police said was a stolen car that contained three grams of heroin and drug paraphernalia. Charges against the two were ultimately dismissed. Epstein's departure marks the first lineup change for the band since 1994. He'll be replaced by original Heartbreakers bassist Ron Blair, who left the band in 1982 due to exhaustion over touring and frustration that his work was underappreciated. Still, as Blair joked with uncanny foresight in a 1994 documentary, ''It's been a real friendly situation, and I'm scheduled to rejoin the band in 2001, so it's all cool!'' The Heartbreakers begin a U.S. tour on June 27....

With even Ozzy Osbourne joining the June 3 Buckingham Palace concert commemorating Queen Elizabeth II's 50 years on the throne, is there performer who's not acceptable to Her Majesty? Well, there's still the , who sounded a deliberately sour note during her silver jubilee 25 years ago with the release of their scabrous ''God Save the Queen.'' Except for a 1996 reunion tour, the punk pioneers have hardly played together in a quarter of a century, but they couldn't let the occasion of the queen's golden jubilee slip by without another raspberry, so they're rereleasing the single on May 27 and performing at London's Crystal Palace on July 27. ''Let me remind you what being British is all about,'' said singer John Lydon in a London press conference on Thursday. ''This is our country, this is our flag, they're our monarchy, they don't work too well at the moment but let's make the [bleeps] do a good job. Let's get rid of the useless ones and keep a few of the goodies.''

REEL DEALS She's the belle of ''The Bell Jar.'' Gwyneth Paltrow will play poet Sylvia Plath in an untitled biopic. The movie will focus on volatile marriage of Plath, who committed suicide in 1963, to English poet Ted Hughes. It'll be the first movie from Focus, Universal's new art-house division....

Looks like busy Josh Hartnett, who signed on to two films last week, is also the man to make the long-in-development ''Wicker Park'' finally come together. In a role previously offered to Brendan Fraser, Freddie Prinze Jr., and Paul Walker, Hartnett will star in the ''Vertigo''-like thriller as a man who obsessively pursues a woman he believes to be his lost love. Directors have also come and gone on the project; after Joel Schumacher and Danny Cannon, the current helmer is Paul McGuigan (''The Acid House'')....