Love and Monsters - 1 nomination

 

Best Achievement in Visual Effects - Matt Sloan, Genevieve Camilleri, Matt Everitt, Brian Cox 

Love and Monsters is tied with Over the Moon for my Hidden Gem award.  For those of you who are new to the blog, the Hidden Gem award is granted to a movie (and for the first time this year, movies) that I had never even heard of before it was nominated for the Oscars.

This film imagines a post-apocalyptic world in which monsters have populated the earth and killed a significant portion of humans.  People live in pods in semi-protected spaces, and they strive to protect each other.  There is some communication with other pods via radio.  Our hero is Joel who has lost his parents and is not exactly the strongest of the pod (more protected than protector, but a pretty good meal preparer) and is still in love with Aimee who also escaped to another pod.  One day when his pod is breached, he decides that he is going to brave the outside world and get to Aimee's pod to be reunited with her.  The film is Zombieland meets romantic comedy and the visual effects are utterly fantastic.

But this film deserves so much more attention than it has gotten.  The characters are delightful, the monsters are so cool, and the story has just enough obstacles to make Joel's slog worth it.  There is personal development and comedy and drama and excitement - I don't think there is a world in which I would have seen the preview for this film and decided to go see it in a theater, making it all the more delightful when I did see it and enjoyed the heck out of it.  What a pleasure!

Watch the trailer here.