What to watch January 12, 2023: Movie awards contenders

And now, we wait. The bulk of precursor nominations have poured in, and Oscar voting is newly underway. Aside from the final BAFTA roster, most of what’s left is merely a swift march to January 23, nomination day. A couple of films in particular are making well-timed streaming premieres that function as end-of-the-road campaign strategies. 

The contender to stream this week: “Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project”

This Oscar-shortlisted documentary co-directed by spouses Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, who also made 2013’s “American Promise,” follows the eponymous poet and activist through years of civil-rights evolutions. If Black women can withstand the hardships of Earth, Giovanni posits, maybe they can survive in space, too. “Going to Mars” is more experimental than the average biography, which makes sense for such an elusive figure. The film won a jury prize at Sundance and has an Independent Spirit Award nomination. It’s newly streaming on Max. 

Other contenders:

• “Killers of the Flower Moon“: Martin Scorsese‘s late-career magnum opus has been available on VOD for about a month, but now it’s streaming on Apple TV+. As Oscar voting kicks off, could a wider digital footprint be the boost “Killers” needs now that “Oppenheimer” is the Oscars’ consensus front-runner? 
• “The Disappearance of Shere Hite”: Documentarian Nicole Newnham followed up “Crip Camp” with a deft portrait of the famed sex researcher who was a significant media celebrity from the 1970s through the ’90s. The Dakota Johnson-narrated film failed to make the Oscars’ shortlist, but the Producers Guild of America included it among their nominations. Catch it on VOD. 
• “Waitress: The Musical”: The filmed version of Broadway’s favorite aspirational pie whiz, starring Sara Bareilles, has hit VOD after a short theatrical run. 
• “La Syndicaliste”: Isabelle Huppert plays a French whistleblower in her latest collaboration with “Mama Weed” director Jean-Paul Salomé, now available on VOD.
• “Self Reliance”: Jake Johnson‘s directorial debut, which premiered at last year’s South by Southwest, is part existential comedy and part Twilight Zone-lite curio. Johnson plays a sad sack recruited to participate in an elaborate dark-web competition show in which he’s hunted by ninjas. The supporting cast includes Anna Kendrick, Christopher Lloyd, Natalie Morales, and Emily Hampshire. It’s no awards player, but it is an amusing diversion worth watching now that it’s on Hulu.

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