By Robert Abele, Special to the Tribune
A tale of encroachment and entrenchment - and, perhaps, the perils of undernourishment - the drama "Lemon Tree" from Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis pits Salma, a lonely Palestinian widow (Hiam Abbass) tending a family lemon grove in her West Bank village, against a slick Israeli defense minister (Doron Tavory) building his new house on the Green Line border that abuts her property.
When his security forces declare her shade-giving trees a threat, he orders them uprooted, spurring a court fight from Salma. Riklis, turning once again to boundary issues after his wedding saga "The Syrian Bride," runs with his geopolitical metaphor, fashioning a battle of wills both bitter - the demise of an occupied woman's livelihood, an arrogant neighbor's thoughtlessness - and sweet, as when Salma finds romantic camaraderie with her young, worldly Palestinian attorney (Ali Suliman).
Deepening the feminist angle is the portrait of the minister's wife (a wonderful Rona Lipaz-Michael) as an unhappy domestic adjunct whose growing sympathy for her embattled neighbor yields its own defiance.
Despite Riklis' sometimes clunky thematic restlessness - veering from media satire to patriarchal drama to jokes about clueless security guards - "Lemon Tree" is, in its best moments, a sober-hearted take on the righteous blow-back from whittled-away souls, and a movie that invariably rights itself with each return to the beautifully steely gaze of Abbass.
A ship's prow figure of melancholy fortitude, Abbass can suggest more about the weight of the world with each tying on of a head scarf than many actors armed with reams of dialogue.
No MPAA rating.
Running time: 1:46.
Starring: Hiam Abbass (Salma); Ali Suliman (Zlad); Doron Tavory (Defense Minister Israel Navon); Rona Lipaz-Michael (Mira Navon).
Directed by Eran Riklis; written by Suha Arraf, Riklis; produced by Bettina Brokemper, Antoine de Clermont-Tonnerre, Michael Eckelt and Riklis. An IFC Films release.

By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Movie Critic
2-1/2 stars
If you look up the word "typecasting" in the dictionary, you'll find Matthew McConaughey's smirk affixed to the title "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past." Nonetheless, director Mark Waters' Lothario-learns-a-lesson comedy is better than its already sour reputation.
Riffing on "A Christmas Carol," the script concerns a caddish high-fashion photographer, played by McConaughey, who spends his days and nights lining up the femmes to be bagged and blue-binned like last week's recycling. This fast-talking snake's due for a reckoning. It is a supernatural job, arranged by the ghost of his late Uncle Wayne, played by Michael Douglas in full, misogynist Rat Pack mode. Jennifer Garner, easy to like and sharp with her timing, is the love interest, which is not the same as a rounded character. You take what you can get with the female leads in these sorts of movies.
If anyone else had played the male lead - Daniel Day-Lewis, Liev Schreiber, Ice Cube, Cheech Marin, anyone - "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" might've contained an element of surprise in its key performance. McConaughey has skill (see "Dazed and Confused" for a reminder), but in commercial vehicles such as "Failure to Launch" or this one, he has difficulty separating the smarm from the charm. Twenty minutes into "Ghosts," the dread creeps in.
Then, a minor miracle: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the screenwriting team that brought you "Four Christmases" (a hit, but a painful one) start bringing the funny. In a flashback Douglas nails a monologue about what he's learned about women and what he hopes to instill in his nephew. "I can't teach you algebra, or camping, or even ethics," he says. Only seduction techniques.
McConaughey approaches each new obstacle or ghostly plot development or slapstick setup as an excuse to stick to his grinning stoner's delivery, at least until the Scrooge-like thaw. Plenty of actors don't appear to be acting onscreen, yet they're thinking and acting and reacting every second. I'm not sure what McConaughey does for a living, really. I know a lot of people are mad for the guy. (I remember talking to one woman who, on the subject of "A Time to Kill," could barely form a sentence, so in lust was she.) All I can say is, despite my McConaughey resistance, I got more guilty chuckles from "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" than "Failure to Launch" or "Four Christmases."
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for sexual content throughout, some language and a drug reference).
Running time: 1:40.
Starring: Matthew McConaughey (Connor Mead); Jennifer Garner (Jenny Perotti); Michael Douglas (Uncle Wayne); Breckin Meyer (Paul Mead); Emma Stone (Allison Vandermeersh); Noureen DeWulf (Melanie).
Directed by Mark Waters; written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore; produced by Jon Shestack and Brad Epstein. A Warner Bros. Pictures release.

By Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune Movie Critic
A chaotic headbanger, "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" is saved from pure flat-footed blockbuster franchise adequacy by six things, three of them on Hugh Jackman's left hand, three on his right.
Don't those retractable metal alloy blades look like a blast? The way they slide in and out like that? It's the only special effect in this entire mechanical enterprise that's the least bit special. It is cool, plain and simple, the way Jackman's mutant Wolverine slices through helicopter rotors or the passenger side of an oncoming truck, while his nemesis Sabretooth, played by Liev Schreiber, uses his own Howard Hughesian claws to drag a signature across someone's car hood, or someone's neck. Or the script. That would've been worth slicing.
This fourth "X-Men" picture ties for weakest "X-Men" picture with No. 3. The third one came not from Bryan Singer - he directed the enjoyable first two - but from Brett Ratner, whose career to date peaked with the shot of Salma Hayek bending over the car hood in "After the Sunset."
Gavin Hood isn't that kind of director. Hood's Oscar-winning film "Tsotsi" revealed a talent for blunt, effective storytelling, but with "Wolverine" Hood appears mismatched, uncertain as to how to activate and stylize this sprawling origin myth (sounds so much classier than "prequel") designed to showcase Jackman's arched eyebrow of rage, bare bum of destiny - at one point, naked, he darts through a waterfall and across a barnyard like a starlet in a '70s drive-in picture - and his mighty pecs of stardom.
Though they're brothers under the skin, across the centuries and behind their respective, superhuman muttonchops, Jackman and Schreiber periodically try to kill each other in "Wolverine." That's most of the plot. Screenwriters David Benioff and Skip Woods keep the slaughter coming (I wouldn't take anyone under 12 to this one), and every other retort pulls a variation on "Hunt him down. Take his head off." The film races around introducing this character and that one, jumping from Canada to Nigeria to Ohio to the Three Mile Island power plant, setting up the next round of impalings. "Wolverine" delivers a tremendous number of impalings. It may as well be called "X-Men Origins: Rise of the Impalings."
Those who saw the previous "X-Men" features will have little trouble sorting through the mutants here, such as teen versions of Scott "The Fire Beam" Summers and Emma Frost. But there's a rote quality to the proceedings, and director Hood shoots the action in such a way as to minimize the performers' abilities to perform it. The editing by Nicolas De Toth and Megan Gill chops each new incident of violence, along with simple one-two exposition chunks, into 12 or 15 erratic fragments. "Wolverine" has been shot, cut and packaged for those afflicted with ADHLAS which, as you may know, stands for "attention deficit hey look a squirrel!"
The performers compensate some. Here and there you get what you want from an "X-Men" prequel, thanks to the irrepressible Jackman; the slippery, can't-ever-trust-him-for-a-second Danny Huston; Lynn Collins' heartfelt, charismatic Kayla; and a wittily seething Schreiber, underplaying while overplaying - a neat trick. Across the next decade we'll no doubt see more "X-Men Origins" tales. Whoever develops them should take the time to re-view Singer's contributions to the franchise. "Wolverine" makes last summer's "Iron Man" and "The Dark Knight" seem like a long time ago indeed.
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of action and violence, and some partial nudity).
Running time: 1:47.
Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine); Liev Schreiber (Victor Creed/Sabretooth); Danny Huston (Stryker); Dominic Monaghan (Bradley); Ryan Reynolds (Wade Wilson/Deadpool); Taylor Kitsch (Remy LeBeau/Gambit); Will.i.am (Wraith); Lynn Collins (Kayla).
Directed by Gavin Hood; written by David Benioff and Skip Woods; produced by Lauren Shuler Donner, Ralph Winter, John Palermo and Jackman. A 20th Century Fox release.