Every year it’s the same story. Oscar pundits spitball the contenders, trying to shape the race the way they deem most satisfying to their tastes, then the Academy screenings begin in late October and the race changes.
With that being said, we should not count out Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives.” At an academy screening on Sunday night, the Thai rescue drama received a roaring reaction from Oscar voters:
“At an Academy screening for THIRTEEN LIVES. Almost everyone I spoke to hadn’t seen The Rescue beforehand but they all really loved this. Lots of tears and applause at the end. I don’t expect it to do well with critics groups, but I’d watch out for it when we get to the guilds.”
Howard was in attendance and spoke with everyone at great length.
I already wrote about my bafflement regarding Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” being dumped by Amazon during the dog days of August.
When MGM, who had originally positioned the film as a November release, sold the rights to the film to Amazon the streaming company clearly decided Howard’s film wasn’t worth campaigning for.
It’s quite clear that when Amazon finalized the acquisition of MGM they decided to use these ready-for-release films to try out atypical release strategies. Maybe they want to copy Apple’s CODA rollout, but that film had some buzz stemming from getting a major prize at the Sundance Film Festival.
Howard’s film, supposedly, received the best test scores in MGM history — earning a 97 in the top two boxes and an 86 “definite recommend”. Critics and audiences are positive on or as well with an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 95% audience score. This would have been perfect fodder for TIFF audiences — one can imagine it finishing in the top 3 for the coveted Toronto audience award.
In fact, this is Howard’s best-reviewed movie since 2013’s “Rush.” Howard’s most acclaimed films have been “Rush” (89%), “Frost/Nixon” (93%), “Cinderella Man” (80%),“Apollo 13” (96%) and “A Beautiful Mind” (74%)
There’s a six-part Netflix docuseries on the Thai cave rescue team being released in September. There also was a well-regarded 2021 documentary titled “The Cave”.