OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY (Rated R)

Once upon a time, Christmas movies would serve up traditional holiday fare such as “It’s a Wonderful Life,” which continues to thrive on cable, and the Irving Berlin musical “Holiday Inn,” among others.

So far, during this holiday season we have had Billy Bob Thornton as a loutish Santa in “Bad Santa 2” and now the extreme version of a corporate holiday celebration in “Office Christmas Party.” Neither film is suitable for family viewing.

To its credit, “Office Christmas Party” has a great cast of comic characters, starting with Jennifer Aniston as the corporate boss-from-hell, T.J. Miller as the slacker boss of the Chicago branch office and Jason Bateman as the borderline nerdy tech executive.

Miller’s Clay Vanstone runs the Chicago branch of the family-owned tech firm Zenotek, but his older sister Carol (Aniston) does not share Clay’s fun-loving spirit of having a corporate culture that values its employees.

With Christmas approaching, Clay wants to have a fun office party, though Mary (Kate McKinnon), head of Human Resources wearing a non-denominational holiday sweater, is a killjoy who frets about the right cheese platter.

Getting wind of these plans, Carol cancels the Christmas festivities and threatens to close down the Chicago office, firing all of the employees and leaving her brother to live off his trust fund.

Assisted by Bateman’s tech executive Josh Parker and Olivia Munn’s tech savvy engineer Tracey, Clay and his crew go behind her back to set up a raucous party to attract a big account from potential client Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) who could save the branch office from closure.

The solution to keeping the Chicago office functioning beyond the holidays is the kind of stupid, futile gesture that originated with frat parties in “Animal House.” Throw the most debauched party one could imagine because it’s all going to hell anyway.

Starting off as a dance party with live reindeer, an imitation Jesus and Clay in a Santa suit, the evening gets gradually rowdier and out-of-control because it’s always a bad idea when employees get drunk with their co-workers.

A snow machine is inadvertently loaded with a bag of cocaine that loosens the inhibitions of Walter Davis. The party eventually turns into the semblance of the decaying Roman Empire’s drunken and depraved sex orgies.

Bad behavior becomes the norm for “Office Christmas Party,” but the fast pace of sight gags, one-liners and crude yet often hilarious scenes turns this holiday comedy into an amusing diversion, if you are willing to let go of any reservations about the absence of a sensible plot.

TV Corner: 'Star' on FOX Network

Banking on the success of the TV series “Empire,” the FOX Network turns to the same creator and executive producer, Lee Daniels, to pull back the curtain on music’s gritty and dark reality in the new series “Star.”

“Empire” has a strong pull for many watching this music industry soap opera of power plays and betrayals, but I’ve not been a follower of its melodramatic machinations, even though Taraji P. Henson’s Cookie is a powerful force of nature well worth watching.

From a personal point of view, I am even less likely to get past the first episode of “Star,” in which the main characters are a trio of young girls running from their pasts in order to chart a path to stardom in the treacherous music business.

“Star” is not just the name of the show. It happens that the most talented singer in the aspiring girl group is named Star (Jude Demorest), a tough-as-nails beauty who looks like she could just as easily twirl on a pole at a low-rent strip club.

Star is a young woman of unbridled ambition who escapes from a hellish foster family in Pittsburgh and heads off to rescue her younger sister Simone (Brittany O’Grady) from a similar terrible fate.

Together, the long-separated siblings head to Atlanta to team up with spoiled rich girl Alexandra (Ryan Destiny), who for reasons that don’t seem readily apparent or even logical leaves her upper-crust lifestyle in Manhattan for a dubious trek into the underbelly of the capital of Georgia.

The only connection the girls have to this Southern metropolis is beauty shop owner Carlotta Brown (Queen Latifah), the godmother to Star and Simone who takes them in but soon finds the girls are a handful.

The role of Carlotta, who sings beautifully in the church choir, allows Queen Latifah to shine with her natural talents, but given that she spends too much time coping with bickering employees, that’s about as far as it goes.

The character that might be the most believable is down-on-his-luck Jahil Rivera (Benjamin Bratt), a seedy-looking type who hangs out in dive bars and strip clubs, but still has a knack for spotting musical talent.

Having once managed singers, Jahil sees the girls as a ticket back to the industry. The ambitious manager might be interesting to watch, but there is much about “Star” that seems too contrived, and even unsettling, to stick with for the long haul.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake county News.