Babylon

With three decades of music and one very heavy reputation to live up to, the Rolling Stones are leaving nothing to chance on their 1997 "Bridges to Babylon" tour. In their nonstop two hours and 20 minutes on stage, the guys roar through two dozen solid songs - mostly the predictable classics that the world still demands. Yet the Stones deliver the goods with a fresh zest and integrity that underscore anew their eternal status as the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band. As usual, the spectacle aspects of the show are grossly overdone, with the gaudiest gold-toned stage set this side of ancient Babylon - or modern Las Vegas - plus lots of costume changes by Mick Jagger, excellent closed-circuit video close-ups and the occasional film flashback or cheeky animation bit to enlighten a lyric.

Two of TV's most popular science-fiction shows, "Babylon 5" and "The X-Files," are invading video stores. Episodes of TNT's hit television series "Babylon 5" are available now, while "The X-Files" movie, which includes never-before-seen footage, hits stores next month. Warner Home Video offers four new-to-video releases from "Babylon 5. " Titles now available are: "The Gathering", "In the Beginning", "Born to the Purple/Infection" and "Midnight on the Firing Line/Soul Hunter.

BABYLON, Iraq - Nowadays it seems that Babylon just can't catch a break. Once the center of the ancient world, it has been despoiled in modern times by Saddam Hussein's fantasies of grandeur, invading armies, and village sprawl. Now come two more setbacks for the city famous for its Hanging Gardens and Tower of Babel: Parts of its grounds have been torn up for an oil pipeline, and a diplomatic spat is hampering its bid for coveted UNESCO heritage status. The pipeline was laid in March by Iraq's Oil Ministry, overriding outraged Iraqi archaeologists and drawing a rebuke from UNESCO, the global guardian of cultural heritage.

It's easy to babble on about "Babylon 5. " Every episode of the syndicated sci-fi program is as different as could be from the show preceding it. One week, "B5" may concentrate on action, and the next week an episode may focus on an in-depth character study or a religious parable. So it's no surprise that a scheduled 45-minute interview with the good- natured Bruce Boxleitner, aka John Sheridan, captain of the United Nations- like space station Babylon 5, turns into an hour-and-half conversation.

Your Jan. 22 article on the reconstruction of Babylon was most interesting. You speculate on which entertainers will or will not show up for the Babylon music festival scheduled in September. Let me answer this for you. None will, because there will be no Babylon. I quote from a completely authoritative source - the Bible. Isaiah 13:19-21 and Jeremiah 50:13 both state that Babylon shall never again be inhabited and shall remain desolate. We now have a chance to see biblical prophecy fulfilled.

A fugue for sleepwalking suburbanites, Judy Berlin is a lyrical ensemble piece set in the Long Island community of Babylon. The black-and-white film marks the auspicious feature debut of writer/director Eric Mendelsohn, whose film is laced with magic-realist bittersweetness. Imagine a matzoh-pizza version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The film is set on a September day when a solar eclipse at high noon has the effect of making it seem like bedtime in Babylon. And its effect is that of one of those pinhole devices through which such solar dramas are reduced so that we may observe them without damaging our eyes.

Only the pure of heart could regard Hollywood as an enchanted land the way Paolo and Vittorio Taviani do in Good Morning, Babylon, a fairy tale about two brothers, Italian stonemasons hired by D.W. Griffith to build sets for his 1916 epic Intolerance. The filmmaking brothers Taviani are gifted, naive artists whose childlike wonder served them well in their earlier films. Even when they dealt with material as loaded as the Oedipal conflict (Padre, Padrone) or Italian resisters to fascism during World War II (Night of the Shooting Stars)

Bridges to Babylon The Rolling Stones (Virgin) For those who've feared that rock and roll music will lead you straight to hell, the Rolling Stones have always been around to offer comfort and (tongue-in-cheek) assurance that, well, it really will. The road to ruin begins with almost every Stones song we know and love, from "Paint It Black" and "Satisfaction" on down. And so it is again with "Bridges to Babylon," a new Stones concert tour and 13-song CD designed to lead you - sometimes gleefully, other times grousingly - to the dark side.

David Gray, the veteran British singer-songwriter whose White Ladder was one of last year's unexpected successes, writes songs about what happens when ordinary people are pushed to the breaking point. A master of internal commentary, he captures the rational thoughts and rash impulses, the lurking doubts and nagging voices buried deep in the subconscious. His biggest hit, "Babylon," follows a lover frozen with fear as he mulls a relationship-jeopardizing blunder. The song's concluding plea: "Let go your heart, let go your head.

J. Michael Straczynski, the guest of honor at Wizard World Philly this year, has become known for two things. First, everything he touches turns to gold. His first writing job was for the "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" cartoons in the late '80s, when an unsolicited pitch landed him a regular job on the series. It became a hit, as were other shows he proceded to work on - "Jake and the Fatman," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Walker, Texas Ranger. " Then, in 1994 Straczynski created the Emmy-winning sci-fi TV series "Babylon 5. " When he entered the world of comic books, nothing changed.

BABYLON, Iraq - Nowadays it seems that Babylon just can't catch a break. Once the center of the ancient world, it has been despoiled in modern times by Saddam Hussein's fantasies of grandeur, invading armies, and village sprawl. Now come two more setbacks for the city famous for its Hanging Gardens and Tower of Babel: Parts of its grounds have been torn up for an oil pipeline, and a diplomatic spat is hampering its bid for coveted UNESCO heritage status. The pipeline was laid in March by Iraq's Oil Ministry, overriding outraged Iraqi archaeologists and drawing a rebuke from UNESCO, the global guardian of cultural heritage.

Talk about exceeding expectations. Babylon A.D. , which had all the cauliflower earmarks of a trashy action throwaway, turns out instead to be a disturbing, wonderfully executed vision of the future, the equal of last year's well-received Children of Men . The film also returns Vin Diesel to his ideal mode as a basso profundo decimator. In Babylon A.D. he plays Toorop, a hardened mercenary scratching to survive in a brutal, bombed-out Eastern Europe. Toorop is hired by Russian crime lord Gorsky (a nearly unrecognizable Gerard Depardieu)

J. Michael Straczynski, the guest of honor at Wizard World Philly this year, has become known for two things. First, everything he touches turns to gold. His first writing job was for the "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" cartoons in the late '80s, when an unsolicited pitch landed him a regular job on the series. It became a hit, as were other shows he proceded to work on - "Jake and the Fatman," "Murder, She Wrote" and "Walker, Texas Ranger. " Then, in 1994 Straczynski created the Emmy-winning sci-fi TV series "Babylon 5. " When he entered the world of comic books, nothing changed.

David Gray, the veteran British singer-songwriter whose White Ladder was one of last year's unexpected successes, writes songs about what happens when ordinary people are pushed to the breaking point. A master of internal commentary, he captures the rational thoughts and rash impulses, the lurking doubts and nagging voices buried deep in the subconscious. His biggest hit, "Babylon," follows a lover frozen with fear as he mulls a relationship-jeopardizing blunder. The song's concluding plea: "Let go your heart, let go your head.

New York, the city that doesn't sleep - or so Ol' Blue Eyes thought. Were Frank to step into Philadelphia today, he'd realize the Big Apple isn't the only insomniac metropolis. With a party practically every night, the City of Brotherly Love is rarely tucked in by 10 p.m. Here's a sample of what's behind the city's red eyes: Who but DJ S&S can sway you to "Throw Ya Hands Up"? Puffy's top mixmaster and former Jay-Z DJ, S&S will be getting the party started quickly tonight. He and DVFF will be taking you on "A Space Odyssey.

A fugue for sleepwalking suburbanites, Judy Berlin is a lyrical ensemble piece set in the Long Island community of Babylon. The black-and-white film marks the auspicious feature debut of writer/director Eric Mendelsohn, whose film is laced with magic-realist bittersweetness. Imagine a matzoh-pizza version of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. The film is set on a September day when a solar eclipse at high noon has the effect of making it seem like bedtime in Babylon. And its effect is that of one of those pinhole devices through which such solar dramas are reduced so that we may observe them without damaging our eyes.

The Rolling Stones, not satisfied with the $89.5 mil they raked in from the September 1997-launched "Bridges to Babylon" tour, will do a 20-gig tour early next year on which the best tix will cost $300 each. "Usually, we know when and where we're going to stop dead," said Keith Richards. "But due to public demand and British tax laws, we decided to keep going. " The tour, designed to sell the live album from the Babylon tour, No Security - out yesterday - will play the so-called secondary cities the band didn't drain the last time around, such as Denver; San Francisco; Hartford, Conn.

Two of TV's most popular science-fiction shows, "Babylon 5" and "The X-Files," are invading video stores. Episodes of TNT's hit television series "Babylon 5" are available now, while "The X-Files" movie, which includes never-before-seen footage, hits stores next month. Warner Home Video offers four new-to-video releases from "Babylon 5. " Titles now available are: "The Gathering", "In the Beginning", "Born to the Purple/Infection" and "Midnight on the Firing Line/Soul Hunter.

For guys who still play as though their lives depended on it, the Rolling Stones take a lot of abuse for being "over-the-hill galoots" or "lumbering dinosaurs" who ought to be rolled into a museum and mounted for display. Such has it been their fate to suffer, in fact, for almost a decade. In 1989 - the group's 25th recording anniversary - some wags renamed the Rolling Stones' new tour and album "Steel Wheelchairs. " Five years later, the increasingly testy naysayers dubbed the group's return "Geriatric Lounge," a play on its proper title, "Voodoo Lounge.

With three decades of music and one very heavy reputation to live up to, the Rolling Stones are leaving nothing to chance on their 1997 "Bridges to Babylon" tour. In their nonstop two hours and 20 minutes on stage, the guys roar through two dozen solid songs - mostly the predictable classics that the world still demands. Yet the Stones deliver the goods with a fresh zest and integrity that underscore anew their eternal status as the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band. As usual, the spectacle aspects of the show are grossly overdone, with the gaudiest gold-toned stage set this side of ancient Babylon - or modern Las Vegas - plus lots of costume changes by Mick Jagger, excellent closed-circuit video close-ups and the occasional film flashback or cheeky animation bit to enlighten a lyric.