What to watch this weekend February 17, 2023: Movie awards contenders
It’s a very light weekend for new awards-contending movies on streaming. In fact, it’s been a pretty light week for new movies on streaming in general. Netflix doesn’t have any major movie releases today, and the other streaming services seem to be following suit. If you really want to stream an awards contender this weekend, “Elvis” is still on HBO Max. As people have astutely noted on Twitter, the cut at the end of the movie from Austin Butler as Elvis Presley singing “Unchained Melody” while sitting at a piano strewn with Coke cups to the real Elvis is heartbreaking and energizing and capital-C Cinema of the highest order. The movies below don’t have a moment like that, but they’re all right.
The contender to watch this weekend: “Sharper”
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This slick A24-produced psychological heist thriller has some highly decorated names in the cast. Oscar winner Julianne Moore stars, along with six-time Emmy winner and EGOT nominee John Lithgow, plus Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, and Briana Middleton. Stan stars as a man whose semi-estranged mother (Moore) is married to a billionaire (Lithgow). He concocts a scheme to steal some of that money from the billionaire’s son (Smith), with the help of a woman (Middleton) he enlists to get close to him. But is his mother involved somehow? Who’s really scamming who? It’s a twisty mind-game thriller that’s getting mixed-to-positive reviews. It’s not actually an Oscar contender, but Julianne Moore is always worth watching. It’s streaming on Apple TV+ now.
Other contenders:
“Armageddon Time”: James Gray’s semi-autobiographical coming-of-age race-and-class drama was designed to be an Oscar contender, but it didn’t work out. It still received mostly positive reviews that praised the performance of young star Jaylin Webb and Gray’s unsentimental screenplay. It’s streaming on Peacock.
“Framing Agnes”: A thoughtful documentary in which trans actors turn transcripts of 1960s-era interviews conducted as part of an infamous study at UCLA into talk-show interviews. Throughout the process, they also reflect on their own experiences as transgender people. It’s available to rent or buy on Amazon.
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