SAG Awards: Harbinger of Oscars to Come?

In the judgment of their peers in the acting profession, Jamie Bell in “Billy Elliot” and Benicio Del Toro in “Traffic” turned in two of the five best performances of the year 2000 and were among the five nominees selected for this year’s Screen Actors Guild awards. By comparison, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought Javier Bardem in “Before Night Falls” and Ed Harris in “Pollock” turned in two of the best performances. Both SAG and the academy, however, agreed on the three other performances: Russell Crowe in “Gladiator,” Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” and Geoffrey Rush in “Quills.” So, all eyes will be on the SAG awards this Sunday night at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center to see who will walk away with the guild’s statuette. The interest is intense because in the six previous years that SAG has given out its awards, the lead actor winner has always gone on to win the Oscar. In the lead actress category, the SAG winner has won the Oscar four out of six times. This year, SAG and the academy have nominated the same women: Joan Allen for “The Contender,” Juliette Binoche for “Chocolat,” Ellen Burstyn for “Requiem for a Dream,” Laura Linney for “You Can Count on Me” and Julia Roberts for “Erin Brockovich.” Intrigue is also building in the best director race. Only four times since 1949 has the winner of the Directors Guild of America award for outstanding achievement in feature film not gone on to win the Oscar. Could this be the fifth? Both the DGA and the academy agree on four of the nominees: Ang Lee for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Ridley Scott for “Gladiator” and Steven Soderbergh twice--once for “Erin Brockovich” and again for “Traffic.” But the DGA also nominated Cameron Crowe for “Almost Famous,” while the academy nominated British director Stephen Daldry for “Billy Elliot.” The DGA awards will be handed out Saturday night at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles.

Dave Matthews Band Tests Its Selling Power

The new Dave Matthews Band album is definitely selling out--but is the group? The Virginia jam band that built a Grateful Dead-like following for its live performances will hit the charts Wednesday with a new disc, “Everyday,” and retailer projections suggest it will be the first blockbuster of 2001 with first-week sales ranging from a whopping 800,000 to 850,000 copies. It might be a sign that the band was successful in its concerted effort to open up its sound to a more pop-leaning, radio-friendly groove. Matthews plays electric guitar for the first time and called on writer-producer Glen Ballard, whose contributions helped make Alanis Morissette one of the best-selling artists of the ‘90s. Internet bulletin boards devoted to the Matthews Band have included the inevitable talk of the group’s drifting too far into the mainstream, but Bob Feterl, regional manager of Tower Records, thinks the first-week album sales are a clear vote of support from core fans. “The album is flying out of the stores,” Feterl said. “It’s definitely a departure for them; it has a very different touch and it’s a lot more guitar-driven. Sure, some people will say they’ve sold out, but that happened to U2 and Springsteen and R.E.M. . . . They’ll gain more people than they lose.” The Matthews Band and Macy Gray will perform at Dodger Stadium on May 22; tickets go on sale Saturday.

‘Bette’ Tries a Bewitching Switch

The husband switch on “Bewitched,” from Dick York to Dick Sargent, remains one of the more lampooned pop-culture episodes, the sort of thing that gives rise to “dueling Darrin” marathons on Nick at Nite. It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that the producers of “Bette” would have some fun with a husband change on that new CBS sitcom, making light as Robert Hays joins the cast this Wednesday, replacing Kevin Dunn as star Bette Midler’s spouse. Of course, it will probably take more than a new husband to save “Bette,” which arrived amid an enormous tide of publicity and, like so many movie-star-deigning-to-do-TV projects before it, quickly fizzled. Clearly a disappointment, “Bette” has been running fourth in its time slot, behind ABC’s “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” NBC’s surprising “Ed”--which hardly possessed the same preseason star power--and reruns of Fox’s “That ‘70s Show.” Last week, CBS moved the sitcom to 8:30 p.m. following a new show, “Some of My Best Friends,” but the result was roughly the same, with both averaging about 7.1 million viewers. Hays, of course, cut his comedic teeth on the “Airplane” movies, but surely, CBS can’t be serious if it expects him to pull “Bette” out of its nose dive.

--Compiled by Times Staff Writers