FILM REVIEWS

Waiting for Superman (PG) follows a handful of promising kids through an educational system that inhibits rather than encourages academic growth. He surveys “drop-out factories” and “academic sinkholes” but also points to directions for meaningful change. While many will debate the film’s evenhandedness, viewers come away with a sense of how important education is for the functioning of a healthy society. And good teachers are the main key toward that end.—Gordon Houser

Hereafter (PG-13) will likely appeal more to viewers who are at ease with the subject of the afterlife and less to those who are not, a divide the film itself explores. After a stunning opening scene of a tsunami, the film slows considerably and at the end depends on coincidence for its climax. Nevertheless, it manages to skirt sentimentality and simplistic answers to a topic largely ignored by mainstream films.—gh

BOOK REVIEWS

Jesus and Money: A Guide for Times of Financial Crisis by Ben Witherington III (Brazos Press, 2010, $18.99) offers a concise look at what the Bible says about money or wealth. Although Witherington warns against anachronism, he looks for ways of translating that teaching into our time. He especially warns against the prosperity gospel and calls readers to some practices that seem commonsensical, though needed. He does challenge some pervasive myths about the Bible’s teaching and instead offers some clear thinking.—gh

The Gospel in Solentiname by Ernesto Cardenal (Orbis Books, 2010, $30) reveals the wisdom of the poor and oppressed reflecting on the Gospels in their context, in this case peasants and artisans in Solentiname, Nicaragua, during the Somoza dictatorship in the 1970s.—gh