FILM REVIEWS

Eat Pray Love (PG-13) is based on a travel memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert after her divorce. Despite some unrealistic and forced scenes, the beautiful scenes and fine acting from Julia Roberts makes it worthwhile. Richard Jenkins does an amazing job as “Richard from Texas” in India.—Anna Groff

Get Low (PG-13) is based on the story of a Tennessee hermit (Robert Duvall) who famously threw his own rollicking funeral party in 1938 while he was still alive. Duvall brings him alive and offers many bon mots. The film deals with forgiveness and redemption but is weakened by a tepid, predictable ending.—Gordon Houser

DVD REVIEWS

A Prophet (R) is a French film that portrays an impoverished young Frenchman of Arab descent who is transformed in prison. Over the course of the film Malik learns to read, smuggle and murder in order to survive. It also carries overtones of France’s uneasy relations with generations of Arab immigrants and their children.—gh

BOOK REVIEWS

Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics and Devotion in the Book of Revelation by J. Nelson Kraybill (Brazos Press, 2010, $21.99) is an accessible study of a book of the Bible that most Christians either ignore or interpret erroneously as “a catalog of predictions about events that would take place 2,000 years later.” Kraybill argues instead that “it is a projector that casts archetypal images of good and evil onto a cosmic screen.” He notes that both Genesis and Revelation use symbol and poetry to “make the confessional statement that God is sovereign.” Kraybill ends each chapter with a story of faithfulness. This would make an excellent resource for a Sunday school class.—gh