Movie Nation

Not to be a prude or anything, but what the hell has Hollywood done to Christmas comedies?

Sure, “Bad Santa” was jarring and against the grain — a little dash of sweet, a whole bottle of dirty dysfunction. “The Night Before” took things to nasty night before Christmas extreme.

But this year? “Bad Santa 2,” the upcoming “Why Him?” and now “Office Christmas Party” make one long for the sentimental slop of “Christmas with the Cranks.”

It’s not an awful idea, building a hard-R rated “Hangover” clone out of that no-longer-P.C. corporate tradition — the annual bacchanal-blowout in the place where you work.

“Office Christmas Party” throws Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston back together for a farce with him as the mild-mannered company man and her as an assassin in stilettos, out to lay much of a Chicago tech firm off right around the holidays.

That’s another Chicago holiday tradition, BTW. Actually, a nationwide one in corporate America — holiday layoffs.

But this pull-out-all-the-stops one-last-desperate party picture tries WAY too hard, which works against Bateman’s slow-burn strengths. It leans on the gorgeous Olivia Munn, who is no Olivia Wilde when it comes to comedy.

And it all It hangs on the comic stylings of big-oaf T.J. Miller, who is much better in small doses (“Deadpool,””Silicon Valley”). He plays Clay Vanstone, the childish, drunken heir of Zenotech, running his daddy’s company into the ground while his nasty CEO sister (Aniston) would like to put him out of business.

He’s more concerned with explaining the allure of the “Fast and Furious” movies to his second in command, “play it safe” Josh (Bateman).

“They only get MORE ‘Fast. And MORE ‘Furious!'”

Josh is newly divorced, crushing on his tech-genius underling (Munn), indulgent of the rest of the firm, where everybody’s got their “thing.”

Jeremy (Rob Corddry, at his unfunniest) is the angriest customer service chief you ever met. Joel (Sam Richardson) harbors secret party DJ fantasies. Kate McKinnon is the anal retentive HR chief who posts “H.R. is WATCHING YOU” posters everywhere, and renames the party a “Non-denominational holiday mixer,” to be safe, ordering any office “Hook-ups” must take place in the parking lot, off company property.

And her fellow “SNL” star Vanessa Bayer is a lonely single mom secretary who keeps boss out of trouble even as she’s quick with the threats to her feckless ex.

“I will ‘Gone Girl’ you SO HARD!”

Enter Carol (Aniston), wreaking snowy havoc, canceling the party and killing all the joy. Josh and Clay have a “Hail Mary” in mind. If they can land this one tech buyer (they build servers), they could save everybody’s jobs. And when he (Courtney B. Vance) turns out to value a warm, fun corporate “culture,” they invite him to the party hellbent on winning him over by partying so hard that everybody there forgets their impending doom.

It takes a good — OK, not good at all — thirty minutes for the movie to really find its rude and raunchy comfort zone. The party has to be invaded by a hooker. Cocaine has to blow into the night air, eggnog has to be dispensed from — well, wait until you see it.

And I never thought I would ever type this line into a movie review. You have never seen Courtney B. Vance like this.

“Office Christmas Party” turns giddy, for just a few minutes. The giddy kicks in once or twice before the finale, maybe when everybody has to pile into Kate McKinnon’s mini van for a car chase. Is this the right vehicle for a snowy sprint through downtown Chitown?

“It’s a Kia, what GOD would drive!”

Jillian Bell from “The Night Before” sparks a little as a pimp who emphasizes a pleasant customer service experience — in addition to the usual threats. Da’Vine Joy Randolph is the plump take-no-prisoners security guard who would have been funnier in a better picture.

And Randall Park of “The Interview” takes a shot at playing an Asian accountant with mommy issues.

That’s a whole lot of characters, many of them interpreted by usually hilarious people, in a cluttered, ham-fisted farce that pulls its punches so often that it never pops, a meandering mess that never gets up to the speed one needs to achieve “romp.”

MPAA Rating:R for crude sexual content and language throughout, drug use and graphic nudity

Cast: Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn, Kate McKinnon, T.J. Miller, Courtney B. Vance, Da’Vine Joy Randolph, Rob Corddry, Randall Park

Credits:Directed by Josh Gordon, Will Speck , script by Justin Malin, Larau Solon, Dan Mazer. A Paramount release.

Running time: 1:45

When you title your horror movie “Abattoir” you’re building in certain…expectations.

Lots of blood, for starters. And while there’s plenty of it in this adaptation of a comic book, there isn’t exactly a slaughterhouse full of it.

Director Darren Lynn Bousman (assorted “Saw” sequels) toys with the idea of a lurid, stylistic “faithful” comic adaptation here. He works from a script that clings to the pungent, minimalist zingers that stand out on the page, giving the voice over narration (not enough of it) to the villain, hurling all manner of design and effects flourishes into an impressive finale.

And hanging your picture on veteran Scottish character player Dayton Callie (“Sons of Anarchy,” “Deadwood”) is a solid choice. He plays a small town hustler/preacher with a sideshow barker’s spiel, a man who dresses out of his time and yet who has conned the village of New English into some sort of deal with the Devil.

“He went to Hell. He brought back its SECRETS!”

But the movie is let down by a meandering story and two good-looking but uninteresting and out-of-their-depth leads.

Jessica Lowndes

Crone’s “secrets involve Preacher Jebediah Crone (LOL) tracking down, buying and flipping houses where awful murders take place. His “Revelation Holdings” strips the “murder room” out of each house before it is resold, an old trick if you’ve ever watched an HGTV show on folks who flip for a living.

Intrepid reporter Julie (Jessica Lowndes) resents the fact that her newspaper won’t let her do crime reporting. “Doug’s on crime,” her salty editor (Bryan Batt) hisses. “He’s got scars. You’ve got ambition and perfect skin.”

But she also has a source, a sometime beau/cop played by Joe Anderson. And when her sister’s family is slaughtered, Det. Grady and Julie start looking into why their house resold so quickly, and why the blood-spattered “murder room” is missing.

Their search leads them to this Revelation Holding front, and then into the boondocks, where sleepy New English is filled with scary characters. Of course horror dowager Lin Shaye is one of them.

“You SCARED me!”

“I have that effect on people.”

Will out two diggers find the answers they seek, or is this dead-end dump literally the end of the road for them?

This Louisiana production feels somewhat unstuck in time and geography. Costumes of different eras, cars of various vintages, topographical establishing shots that muddy up the locale, a “ghost town” that just looks like an abandoned cement factory — with a few cute bungalows somehow around the edges — all give it that comic book “Everyworld/Days of Future Past” look.

Callie rattles through his mesmerizing sermons/come-ons.

The germ of an interesting idea was here, and the collection of murder rooms makes for a dazzling third act setting.

But the movie flatlines every time a chewy supporting player (Michael Pare is another) isn’t on the screen. The leads are dull and so rattled in some line-readings as to make you wonder if English is their second language.

Lowndes has some quips about “Glengarry Glen Ross” real estate hustlers (J. LaRose) that sound as if she’s just been handed them on a note card, and doesn’t understand what she’s saying.

Anderson is similarly clumsy with the Mother Tongue. An elm tree becomes “el-um” and “Realtor” — well, heck kids, what ARE you spending your movie money on if not housing?

MPAA Rating: graphic violence, profanity

Cast:Jessica Lowndes, Joe Anderson, Dayton Callie, Lin Shaye, Michael Pare

Credits:Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman script by Christopher Monfette, based on the Radical comic book series. An eOne/Momentum release.

Running time: 1:38

His chewy supporting role as a has-been fight trainer in “Bleed for This” had us hoping that we’d seen the last of Aaron Eckhart slumming in horror’s “Poverty Row” productions.

But no. “I Frankenstein” was but one paycheck picture. “Incarnate” is another.

Man’s gotta eat, Christmas is coming, etc.

“Incarnate” is an exorcism movie where they invent a “scientific ” style of demonic removal — traveling into the brain of the possessed to rescue them from the illusion that the “parasitic entities” control them.

“I don’t DO exorcisms! I EVICT them, from the INSIDE!”

Talk about pointless. If you’re going to do an exorcism movie, you need the Catholic Church, the old priest and the young priest, the crucifixes “the green vomit,” as one character jokes, “the whole head spinning around, that stuff.”

But if you’re the screenwriter of the 2008 ghost flop “Passengers” trying to find something to do with a revived corner of horror, anything for a laugh and a buck. I guess.

Eckhart is Dr. Ember, a “cutting edge” researcher, confined to a wheelchair, chasing an evil spirit named “Maggie” through the skulls of assorted folks who have been touched and thus possessed by her.

A little boy (David Mazouz) is the latest. His concerned mother (Carice Van Houten of “Black Book,””Race” and “Valkyrie”) calls The Church. And the Vatican sends Catalina Sandino Moreno of “Maria Full of Grace” to acquire Dr. Ember’s services.

“I don’t CLOCK IN for the Vatican!”

But if this case helps him nail his nemesis, so be it.

Breanne Hill and Keir O’Donnell are the scientific assistants/pretty set dressing for “The Boss.” Tomas Arana is a rival “incarnate” living large “on Vatican money.”

There’s a new nomenclature — “arch demons” who can be defeated by “a Truth.” And there’s a crucifix or two.

Mainly, this is just Eckhart, unshaven and unkempt, strapped and writhing in a wheelchair  in a darkened room or — when he’s chasing “a parasitic entity” inside somebody — cleanshaven, groomed and troubled as he tries to lead the possessed out of danger in whatever fantasy world the demon has lured the victim into.

Dullness “Incarnate,” in other words.

MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of horror violence, terror, disturbing images, brief strong language, sensuality and thematic elements

Cast: Aaron Eckhart, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Carice Van Houten, Emjay Anthony, Breanne Hill

Credits:Directed by Brad Peyton, script by Ronnie Christensen. A High Top release.

Running time: 1:31

The late mystery novelist Patricia Highsmith has long been a Hollywood favorite. Her novels became such cinema classics as “Strangers on a Train,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (and French film “Purple Noon”), “The Two Faces of January” and “Carol.”

She wrote smart thrillers with a shiny veneer and troubling (for her era) sexual subtexts, and that has drawn filmmakers from Alfred Hitchcock to Anthony Minghella to Todd Haynes to, now, Andy Goddard.

The “Downton Abbey” vet takes a shot at Highsmith’s “A Kind of Murder,” and misses — cleanly, bloodlessly and without any mess.

It’s a moderately intricate mystery along the lines of “Strangers on a Train,” (“Once You Meet a Stranger” is the source novel’s title).

A woman has died at a bus stop/roadhouse in upstate New York. Her bookseller husband (Eddie Marsan) is the sole suspect, a man dogged by Det. Corby (Vincent Kartheiser of “Mad Men”). But as the newspapers remind us, he’s got no case. Yet.

And this intrigues rich, successful architect Walter Stackhouse (Patrick Wilson). He’s unhappily married to a suspicious, disturbed and icy beauty — Clare — played by Jessica Biel. Their fights have a 1960 film formality to them.

“I guess we had a one good year. Is that it? One good year?”

“For God’s sake, Clare. Don’t be so melodramatic.”

Simple divorce should suffice. But that might be costly, and the Stackhouses have just moved into a designer showcase of Walter’s design. Clare has a hint of the “suicidal” about her.

So our interest is piqued when Walter starts driving his Corvette convertible to the provinces to look in on this bookseller Kimmel, see what makes him tick, figure out his crime.

Sure, Walter’s a part-time crime novelist and this could just be “research.” But we suspect otherwise. And when Clare doesn’t survive one of her frequent bus rides to visit her ailing mother out of town, the detective suspects otherwise, too.

There’s something very right about Kartheiser’s cop blurting out, “I want you to know that nobody’s smart than me.” Dramatically? That line’s foreshadowing could not be more obvious.

The versatile character actor Marsan has played just enough villains for his Kimmel casting to feel a tad on the nose. Beetle-brow tucked behind glasses, there’s not much mystery to him. We simply wonder how dangerous he truly is, and if Stackhouse is in danger or his wife was merely another Kimmel victim.

Wilson does that “looks guilty” thing as well as any leading man in the movies. But there are all these guilty elements in Stackhouse’s character. Yes, he’s taking up with a sultry younger jazz singer (Haley Bennett). He keeps lying to the police about his whereabouts, his contacts and possible motives. These add up to a character who can’t be guilty. It just seems too obvious, right?

Biel, a limited actress who has been good on occasion, is uninteresting in the extreme here, playing a melodramatic cliche.

“A Kind of Murder” botches the mystery, even as it recreates a lush version of the late ’50s/early ’60s that Todd Haynes (“Far From Heaven,””Carol”) would envy.

But as its quickly stumbles through its crimes and clues, “A Kind of Murder” leaves you with the uneasy feeling that a promising mystery has simply been designed to death.

MPAA Rating: R for language and some violence

Cast: Patrick Wilson, Jessica Biel, Haley Bennett, Eddie Marsan, Vincent Kartheiser

Credits:Directed by Andy Goddard, script by Susan Boyd, based on a Patricia Highsmith novel. A Magnolia release.

Running time: 1:35

There’s probably not a whole lot the car crowd will learn from a documentary about the history and allure of the VW Beetle. But there are fresh facts and dollops of charm in Damon Ristou’s “The Bug: Life and Times of The People’s Car.”

Jalopnik.com gearhead Jason Torchinsky sets us straight about its origins. Hitler didn’t “invent it,” nor did Ferdinand Porsche. The order of things was that Hitler decreed that an affordable vehicle be made for the masses, and Porsche, working from a design put forth by one Josef Ganz, created it.

Ganz? He was an auto journalist and designer whose “Standard Superior” was the prototype for the Beetle, Hitler’s notion of a “people’s car.” Ganz was a Hungarian Jew. So enough with the “Hitler’s car” hooey.

“People’s car” (volkswagen) was tossed about in a variety of usages before it became the company name for the firm than made Beetles. The cars were brought to life in the British occupation zone after the war, an export-ready business poised to be put on its feet and revive the now-divided German state.

Others talk about the design’s people friendly “curvilinear” shape, that friendly “face,” with the big eyes, the rounded edges — “like a breast’.” Yeah, it’s primal, instinctual to find a VW Beetle “cute.” The Beetle, one wag opines, is so organic “It looks like it created itself.”

The dazzling ad campaigns that made the car a smash in the US are sampled.

Testimonials come from a variety of owners and drivers, most prominently, the actor Ewan McGregor (below) whose first car was a Beetle.

Long before he made his round the world motorcycle trips (in documentary form), before stardom or any of it, McGregor owned a Beetle, “the honest car,” a simple 20,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that required you to pay attention, to “drive” and not be fiddling with radios, girlfriends and whatever other distractions the world offered when the Beetle was king.

Want to learn about car maintenance? An air-cooled, easy-access rear-engine compact that you and your friends could literally lift and tote off the road is a great place to start. And since it had its electrical/mechanical issues, you didn’t learn to fix them by choice.

“It almost has good days, and bad days — like I do,” McGregor remembers with a laugh.

Of less interest is the film’s framing device, a “barn find” VW that one veteran restorer-hobbyist puts back on the road.  There are plenty of car restoration shows on youtube or cable, and this is humdrum stuff. And the inevitable “Love Bug” clips only point to one way the lovable cars’ burned themselves into the zeitgeist.

But taken at face value, as a film that explains the car’s “softness” and sentimental appeal and history to a new generation of potential owners and restorers, “Life and Times” — like the car itself — does what it’s supposed to do. It gets you there, with no frills, and makes you learn a few things about cars in general and this car in particular along the way.

MPAA Rating: unrated, mild profanity

Cast: Ewan McGregor, Jason Torchinsky, Andrea Hiott

Credits:Directed by Damon Ristau . A Firecracker release. Running time: 1:20

Disney’s “Moana” only has Disney’s “Frozen” for ready comparison, as far as holiday animated blockbusters go, and it’s besting that Pixar-busting smash by 22% thus far in its run, according to Deadline.com. 

The Polynesian “Moana” is over $122 million after 12 days, a bright spot in a generally tepid holiday season at the box office.

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” is over $180 million, and not running out of steam.

This weekend’s widest new release, an Aaron Eckhart starring horror also-ran titled “Incarnate,” didn’t even crack the top ten. But at least it earned over $2 million.

Look at Warren Beatty’s career-ender, “Rules Don’t Apply.” On 23-240o screens, and barely half a million at the box office. Over and out.

“Manchester by the Sea” is riding good notices and awards buzz into the top ten. “Hacksaw Ridge” looks like it will finish up with about $70 million, a “comeback” for Mel Gibson that could extend to awards season honors.

“Bad Santa 2” turned out to be a bust, “Arrival” is creeping along — awards buzz will help — and is over $70 and could stick around long enough to clear $100. Amy Adams and Natalie Portman now look like the Oscar best actress favorites.

“Lion” is doing good business in limited release, Portman’s turn as “Jackie” is doing better.

The Critics Choice Awards may not count for a lot in and of themselves. But the nation’s movie critics do a fair job of dilineating the Oscar field, a month before Oscar nominations come out.

So here they are. I don’t see “Hacksaw Ridge” as a contender, but the others seem pretty close to exactly the list we’ll see come Oscar nomination day. 

Lots of love for “Loving” and “Hell or High Water,” “Manchester by the Sea” and “La La Land” and “Sully,” the latter two I was a little less enthralled with.

Hailee Steinfeld “best young actress” for “Edge of Seventeen”? Annette Bening best actress for “20th Century Women”? Why not?

You add categories, you include EVERY possibility. That way, you get to say, “Hey, we influenced/predicted the Oscars.

BEST PICTURE
Arrival
Fences
Hacksaw Ridge
Hell or High Water
La La Land
Lion
Loving
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight
Sully

BEST ACTOR
Casey Affleck – Manchester by the Sea
Joel Edgerton – Loving
Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Gosling – La La Land
Tom Hanks – Sully
Denzel Washington – Fences

BEST ACTRESS
Amy Adams – Arrival
Annette Bening – 20th Century Women
Isabelle Huppert – Elle
Ruth Negga – Loving
Natalie Portman – Jackie
Emma Stone – La La Land

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Mahershala Ali – Moonlight
Jeff Bridges – Hell or High Water
Ben Foster – Hell or High Water
Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea
Dev Patel – Lion
Michael Shannon – Nocturnal Animals

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Viola Davis – Fences
Greta Gerwig – 20th Century Women
Naomie Harris – Moonlight
Nicole Kidman – Lion
Janelle Monáe – Hidden Figures
Michelle Williams – Manchester by the Sea

BEST YOUNG ACTOR/ACTRESS
Lucas Hedges – Manchester by the Sea
Alex R. Hibbert – Moonlight
Lewis MacDougall – A Monster Calls
Madina Nalwanga – Queen of Katwe
Sunny Pawar — Lion
Hailee Steinfeld – The Edge of Seventeen

BEST ACTING ENSEMBLE
20th Century Women
Fences
Hell or High Water
Hidden Figures
Manchester by the Sea
Moonlight

BEST DIRECTOR
Damien Chazelle – La La Land
Mel Gibson – Hacksaw Ridge
Barry Jenkins – Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea
David Mackenzie – Hell or High Water
Denis Villeneuve – Arrival
Denzel Washington – Fences

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Damien Chazelle – La La Land
Barry Jenkins — Moonlight
Yorgos Lanthimos/Efthimis Filippou – The Lobster
Kenneth Lonergan – Manchester by the Sea
Jeff Nichols – Loving
Taylor Sheridan – Hell or High Water

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Luke Davies – Lion
Tom Ford – Nocturnal Animals
Eric Heisserer – Arrival
Todd Komarnicki – Sully
Allison Schroeder/Theodore Melfi – Hidden Figures
August Wilson – Fences

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Stéphane Fontaine – Jackie
James Laxton – Moonlight
Seamus McGarvey – Nocturnal Animals
Linus Sandgren – La La Land
Bradford Young – Arrival

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
Arrival – Patrice Vermette, Paul Hotte/André Valade
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Stuart Craig/James Hambridge, Anna Pinnock
Jackie – Jean Rabasse, Véronique Melery
La La Land – David Wasco, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Live by Night – Jess Gonchor, Nancy Haigh

BEST EDITING
Tom Cross – La La Land
John Gilbert – Hacksaw Ridge
Blu Murray – Sully
Nat Sanders/Joi McMillon — Moonlight
Joe Walker – Arrival

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Colleen Atwood – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Consolata Boyle – Florence Foster Jenkins
Madeline Fontaine – Jackie
Joanna Johnston – Allied
Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh – Love & Friendship
Mary Zophres – La La Land

BEST HAIR & MAKEUP
Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Hacksaw Ridge
Jackie
Star Trek Beyond

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
A Monster Calls
Arrival
Doctor Strange
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
The Jungle Book

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Finding Dory
Kubo and the Two Strings
Moana
The Red Turtle
Trolls
Zootopia

BEST ACTION MOVIE
Captain America: Civil War
Deadpool
Doctor Strange
Hacksaw Ridge
Jason Bourne

BEST ACTOR IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Benedict Cumberbatch – Doctor Strange
Matt Damon – Jason Bourne
Chris Evans – Captain America: Civil War
Andrew Garfield – Hacksaw Ridge
Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool

BEST ACTRESS IN AN ACTION MOVIE
Gal Gadot – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Scarlett Johansson – Captain America: Civil War
Margot Robbie – Suicide Squad
Tilda Swinton – Doctor Strange

BEST COMEDY
Central Intelligence
Deadpool
Don’t Think Twice
The Edge of Seventeen
Hail, Caesar!
The Nice Guys

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY
Ryan Gosling – The Nice Guys
Hugh Grant – Florence Foster Jenkins
Dwayne Johnson – Central Intelligence
Viggo Mortensen – Captain Fantastic
Ryan Reynolds – Deadpool

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY
Kate Beckinsale – Love & Friendship
Sally Field – Hello, My Name Is Doris
Kate McKinnon – Ghostbusters
Hailee Steinfeld – The Edge of Seventeen
Meryl Streep – Florence Foster Jenkins

BEST SCI-FI/HORROR MOVIE
10 Cloverfield Lane
Arrival
Doctor Strange
Don’t Breathe
Star Trek Beyond
The Witch

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Elle
The Handmaiden
Julieta
Neruda
The Salesman
Toni Erdmann

BEST SONG
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” – La La Land
“Can’t Stop the Feeling” – Trolls
“City of Stars” – La La Land
“Drive It Like You Stole It” – Sing Street
“How Far I’ll Go” — Moana
“The Rules Don’t Apply” – Rules Don’t Apply

BEST SCORE
Nicholas Britell – Moonlight
Jóhann Jóhannsson – Arrival
Justin Hurwitz – La La Land
Micachu – Jackie
Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka – Lion

Perhaps we — ok I — have been too hasty to write off 2016 at the movies.

Sure, the dead stretches have been corpse-strewn, but a year that started with “Deadpool” can’t be a total write-off, can it?

The exceptional films are as rare as they always are, but the great muddled middle brow/middle-ground fare seems to be of a somewhat higher caliber.

Mainstream thrillers like “The Accountant” and “Girl on the Train” were watchable, a true story action picture like “Deepwater Horizon” is almost enough to restore your faith in Mark Wahlberg. I can’t recall a movie whose dazzling visuals and sound made me duck at what I was sure was flying off the screen the way that one did.

Horror produces so much that’s forgettable, that remembering what’s good enough to attract a decent cast (“Ouija 2”) or new twists on basic fears (“Don’t Breathe”) is a worthwhile exercise. “The Eyes of My Mother” is cryptic, arty and succeeds in almost every way — except that it’s not scary.

The holiday/awards season fare is stacked with swings and misses — “Rules Don’t Apply,””Allied,” “Nocturnal Animals,” and the best of that lot, “La La Land.” Some are going to regard the sturdy “Sully” as exceptional. Nah. Good, not great.

But “Arrival” raised the bar on smart sci-fi, “Moonlight” is this year’s breakout indie Oscar contender and “American Honey” is good enough to make you reconsider Shia LaBeouf.

One hopes that awards buzz builds for guys like Michael Shannon (“Nocturnal Animals”) or Paul Dano (“Swiss Army Man”), or Sasha Lane (“American Honey”), even if their movies didn’t connect with a big audience.

The sinister Korean import “The Handmaiden” makes subtitles worth reading, “The Lobster” was at least worth a good argument, “Denial” addressed a Big Issue with smarts and heart and Disney found the best use-ever for digital animation in a live action film with “The Jungle Book.”

I’d include “In Order of Disappearance” in here, the coolest, bleakest vengeance thriller of the millennium, but Stellan Skarsgaard’s dazzling turn in this Norwegian film came out back in 2014 and only opened in the U.S. this year. You should be watching that on Netflix right now.

I saw a lot of documentaries this year, but none really stuck with me as the very best ones always do. But “For the Love of Spock,” or Werner Herzog’s “Lo and Behold,” “Author: The J.T. LeRoy Story,” “The Lovers and the Despot,” “Zero Days,” “Gimme Danger,” the Netflix docs “The 13th” and “Amanda Knox” would make a best docs of the year list.

I may amend this list, as there are a couple of other “contenders” I will only get to see in another week or so — “”Fences,”for instance.

But I’ve been back through the 500 or so titles I watched and reviewed this year, established my benchmarks and waited for fresh fare to come along and knock the best I’ve seen off their perches.

The ones still standing, the ones that had the staying power, are listed below — the Ten Best Films of 2016.

“Loving” — I called this indie historical drama “the most important film” of the year when I saw it. And I’ve seen nothing since that either changed that, or moved and impressed me as much as this intimate epic about forbidden love in defiance of state Jim Crow law. Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga give performances that make this historical love affair feel lived-in and real, with Edgerton in particular capturing the quiet certitude of a simple man who knows what he wants out of life, and knows that can’t be wrong, even if it is illegal — for now. In the context of our toxic times, it is “important.” But beyond that, it is moving and smart, a biographical drama with a sense of the changing currents of history.

“Hell or High Water” — A great genre-picture, perfectly-executed, is a thing of beauty. And this exceptional heist movie makes you remember that Ben Foster is criminally under-employed, that Chris Pine is a lot more than Captain Kirk, and that Jeff Bridges didn’t let an Oscar ruin his gift for ornery, Texas toasted character acting. Droll writing, somber pacing and just enough sparks of wit mixed in with violence and the feeling of impending doom make this David Mackenzie thriller a winner.

“Kubo and the Two Strings” — Don’t underestimate your audience, especially if they’re children, and even if you’re feeding them animation. This animated classic from Laika, the folks who made “Coraline” and “ParaNorman,” is a smart, beautiful Americanized take on an Asian folk tale. It didn’t do Pixar business. But nobody’s talking up Pixar’s chances for a Best Animated Feature Film Oscar this year. In  a just universe, that will come down to this underdog feature, the uproarious “adult” cartoon “Sausage Party,” and Disney’s “instant classic,” “Moana.”

“Manchester by the Sea” — An exquisite rendering of the way grief empties out the soul, this painful picture about tragedy, responsibility and wounds that will never heal, this has Oscar buzz for Casey Affleck. He plays a broken man trying to summon up the heart to “be there” for his nephew when the kid loses his father and faces a future as somebody’s ward. Lucas Hedges is winning as the teenager who, like his uncle, needs to figure out how to grieve. But Michelle Williams, in just a couple of poignant scenes, will tear your heart out.

“Arrival” — We may remember this as the film that finally earned Amy Adams an Oscar. But it’s so muted, so wistful and so very smart that it messes with your head long after you’ve left the theater, and that will stick with you, too. From the storytelling style (flash forwards) to the scientific concepts, unforgettably unusual and yet logically defensible aliens, to the subtexts this brilliant picture slips past us, about fearing the unknown and really fearing “the other,” it’s no wonder this wasn’t a blockbuster. This is science fiction that’s too smart for general audiences.

“Moana” — The few songs are pretty forgettable, but the Polynesian folk story, the jokes, the animation, the great voice-casting (Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Jemaine Clement) make this an unforgettable experience at the movies. Disney totally outclasses the last few Pixar pictures with this in-house production. The gap has been closed, the torch has been passed, The Mouse is making great animated movies again.

“Moonlight” — Patience in a screen storyteller is a rare thing, but Barry Jenkins brings that to this story of bullying, coming-of-age and avoiding coming out on the mean streets of Miami. Jenkins keeps us guessing about motives, wrong-foots us with every pre-judgment and makes an anti-heroic star out of a  Mahershala Ali, playing a sympathetic role-model drug dealer. Yeah. 

“Jackie” — Natalie Portman delivers an exquisite expression of the shattering nature of grief and the shock of witnessing a horrific death in her interpretation of a woman we remember as something of a cultural punchline today. Fashion icon, born rich, married rich repeatedly, a wisp of a debutante with a whispery, submissive voice who could, when tested, become the very embodiment of grace under pressure. Good film, great lead performance.

“Lion” — This inspiring true story merits inclusion here for its unflinching, unsentimental depiction of Indian poverty, and sentimental embrace of the child it follows experiencing it. Sunny Pawaer is a very small boy, an adorable moppet and a natural on camera. His character Saroo’s odyssey through the populous, sometimes callous Third World State on the rise is tense and intensely moving. Director Garth Davis captures the dusty western side of the country and the tough people who cling to life there, and screenwriter Luke Davies and the actors — Nicole Kidman, David Wenham and Dev Patel as  the adult Saroo — pull at the heartstrings as they show us the emotional cost of a traumatic childhood, and the Proustian memories that flood back just from the smell of that favorite food of childhood — a madeleine for Proust, a jalebi for Saroo. Lovely.

“Doctor Strange” — There were two out-of-body experience, joked-up and dazzling comic book adaptations that came out this year. The hilarious “Deadpool” hangs on its wit and a star turn by Ryan Reynolds, and seeing it again recently I was struck by how thin much of what goes on around him and his one-liners is. Weak villain, for starters, malnourished supporting cast. “Doctor Strange” may not have the self-aware winking of that February blockbuster, but it is eye-candy of the highest order, built around a seriously cool and totally credible turn by Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role. Getting Mads Mikkelsen reminds us of that old Hitchcock rule, don’t scrimp on your villain. Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, a dazzling star turn by Tilda Swinton, Benedict Wong? They’re the reason this one will hold up as one of the classics of the genre.

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“Lion” is a survival epic, a poor child’s odyssey through the impersonal poverty and perils of modern India. But thanks to the miracle of modern technology and the magic of movie memory, it’s the feel-good movie of the holidays.

It’s about a little boy from Western India, a vital part of his single-mother’s family support system. Just five years old, Saroo joins his doting older brother Guddu (Abhishek Bharate) in jumping trains so that they can steal coal to sell in the local street market.

If they’re lucky, and nobody catches them and neither breaks his neck leaping on or off the freight cars, they’ll earn enough for the milk that keeps them, their little sister and mother (Priyanka Bose) going for another day.

Saroo, played without a hint of acting affectation by wide-eyed moppet Sunny Pawaer, idolizes Guddu and wants to do everything big brother does. So when there’s the chance for a little field labor (Picking cotton, perhaps? “Bales” are mentioned.), Saroo insists on joining him. They take another train, get separated and the kid dozes off on an empty “de-commissioned” passenger coach that’s locked up and towed cross country.

We experience a child’s terror at waking up to a nightmare of abandonment, with no one on board to help him. And we he arrives in Calcutta, the nightmare widens, as he’s now homeless, an urchin who doesn’t speak Bengali, doesn’t know his surname, doesn’t know the name of the town where he’s from. Every adult he encounters roughly handles him, ignores him or tries to kidnap him for some nefarious purpose.

Going to the callous authorities isn’t much help. That’s how he ends up in the orphanage.

“This is a VERY bad place,” a fellow inmate warns him. And so it is. Until he’s adopted out, packed off to Hobart, Tasmania, where he grows up in easy affluence in the care of an adoring mom (Nicole Kidman) and dad (David Wenham).

But as Saroo (Dev Patel of “Slumdog Millionaire”) grows up into a surfer with hotel management dreams, he’s haunted by the trauma of his past. He’s “Oz” to the core. But a chance dinner party where they serve Indian food gives him his Marcel Proust-“Remembrance of Things Past” “madeleine” moment.

And so his attempt to piece together his “Roots” begins.

First-time feature director Garth Davis wisely puts the first half of this tale in the capable hands of an absolutely magnetic child. You want to pull a Wet Wipe out and clean his face, pinch his cheeks.

Young Pawaer makes us fear for his safety at every turn, empathize with his plight with every peril. Think of the hysteria a parent or child plunges into merely separated in the supermarket at that age. Now imagine the terrors of being plunged into a waking nightmare of abandonment, alienation and despair.Yeah, it could scar you for life.

Pawear, through good directing and careful cutting, seems shocked, even as he’s showing the street-smarts that keep him alive for “one more day,” as the starving “Les Miserables” sing.

Davis serves up those perils in picture postcards of poverty, the dusty India of field labor, hovels and grinding generational poverty. The menaces of being a pretty child alone on the streets are alarming, the “system” that imprisons and then exports street children dismaying.

Kidman is wonderfully cast as the Mother Rescuer, understanding of her new little boy the moment he arrives. He has endured much, and even if he doesn’t speak much English (the first half of the movie is in Hindi and Bengali with English subtitles), she is all re-assurance.

“One day, you’ll tell me all about it.”

Rooney Mara is the classmate the adult Saroo falls in love with who must deal with the trauma and overwhelming guilt he feels about his past, or would if he’d let her.

“I’m not from Calcutta,” he confesses to her. “I’m lost.”

Patel escapes his cinematic “Exotic Marigold Hotel” with a performance that’s subtle and largely non-verbal.

The intrusion of modern technology — the film began life as a “true story” Google Earth commercial — jams us into Saroo’s plight, second-guessing his Google Search decisions.

The script relies on “movie memory,” the total recall the cinema invents for such scenarios, not the way real memory works. But Davis transports us, through flashbacks, to Saroo’s pre-orphan childhood, piecing together details with the adult Saroo as he tries to find his home and his family is the vastness of the subcontinent.

“Lion” is moving and inspiring, a story of cruel fate, cruel people, the kindness of strangers and childhood traumas that we never forget, even as adults. We can only try to understand and find our peace with them.

MPAA Rating:PG-13 for thematic material and some sensuality.

Cast: Sunny Pawaer, Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara, David Wenham

Credits:Directed by Garth Davis, script by Luke Davies, based on the book by Saroo Brierly . A Weinstein Co. release.

Running time: 2:00

Whatever the artistic pretense, some horror movies leave you grateful that the filmmaker mercifully chose to shoot it in black and white.

With “The Eyes of My Mother,” that means we’re left with the hope that whatever’s in that glass, we want to believe it’s just tomato juice.

Nicolas Pecse’s debut feature as writer-director is a patient, pitiless thriller, a macabre tale set in the rural South where random violence is the stuff of folk legend, and morbid bluegrass ballads.

Those are the first sounds we hear in “Mother,” a plaintive bluegrass murder ballad about a killer in “North Caroliner” named Charlie Lawson playing over a trucker’s radio in the mountains of Appalachia.

The trucker sees a woman collapse in the road in front of him, and our story begins.

A farm woman (Diana Agonisti) purrs in English and Portuguese to her little girl, teaching her child about the livestock and how cows are like people “in the construction of their eyes.” Before we can say, “That’s interesting,” she’s remembering medical school in Portugal, and showing little Francisca (Olivia Bond) how to dissect bovine eyeballs.

Then the crazy-eyed stranger strolls up. He calls himself “Charlie,” he’s full of questions — grinning all the while. And he wants to use their restroom. He’s nervously rebuffed with “My husband will be back any second,” but to no avail.

“I’m TRYIN’ to be polite,” he lies.

“I don’t quite know what you’re planning” the mother replies.

It’s obvious, even before he pulls the pistol. But Mother wasn’t lying. She’s dead in the tub, with poor Francisca shocked and immobile, when her husband comes home. He dispatches the killer, and he and his little girl deal with her mother’s body.

And it’s back to “Bonanza.” No law, no cops, and it turns out, no eye-for-an-eye. Because Charlie is kept alive, blinded and totally in the power of little Francisca, who has lots of questions for him at her nightly feedings of the nearly-naked, chained monster.

“Why us?”

“You let me in.”

“Why do you do it?”

“It feels AMAZING!”

As the years pass, the impact of this tragedy ripples through generations and things turn even more surprising and more gruesome.

It’s a 76 minute film in which nothing happens quickly, even the opening highway encounter and the murder that precipitates Pesce’s story. The exotic Kika Magalhaes is the adult Francisca, who speaks to her long-dead mother and sometimes hears her voice.

She listens to mom’s old fado records — Portuguese laments, tortured torch songs. And she deals with a now-catatonic father and the simpering, aged murderer locked up in the barn.

Pesce went for tone here, the kind of horror that comes from a slow death we see coming a long way off. Every encounter leads to tragedy, or would if this was the sort of movie that empathized with its victims.

But “Eyes of My Mother” is closer to torture porn than tragedy, with nudity, grisly deaths and random undeserving suffering inflicted on one and all.

I like its sense of mystery and the efforts to complicate a simple, grim story that might be told at leisure — it’s awfully slow — over a campfire or in a scratchy bluegrass song.  The movie’s unsolved mysteries — how a Portuguese surgeon ended up on a farm in 1950s Appalachia or how this Charlie creep got his start murdering strangers — are intriguing.

Still, there’s no sense being fooled by the arty monochromatic cinematography. Let’s just say that was tomato juice and everybody knows how hard it is to clean up once you’ve spilled it, from a cup or a gallon-sized bottle.

MPAA Rating:R for disturbing violent content and behavior, and brief nudity

Cast: Kika Magalhaes, Will Brill, Diana Agostini, Olivia Bond

Credits:Written and directed by Nicolas Pesce. A Magnet release.

Running time: 1:16