Love and Monsters (2020)

When the Oscar nominees were announced last week there were only two categories that I had seen absolutely nothing in, and one of them was visual effects, which is where this nominee receives it's well deserved nomination. My spouse and I were watching movies separately but simultaneously and we knocked out four of the five nominees in a week. Bam. The movie is a vivid post-apocalypse in which humans are not the cause of the end times (well, sort of. An asteroid is heading for earth, and as is so often the case, the cure is pretty much as bad as the disease)and we are the ones in danger of being squished, as towering centipedes, snails, and slugs and more have wiped out 95% of the human population. These larger than life creations are at the center of the nomination, and they are really impressively well done. The surface became a quite dangerous place and so humans moved underground an are living in colonies who work together to survive. Joel is our hero. He is a little neurotic with endearing self-deprecation in the style of Jessie Eisenberg. He decides to travel over land 85 miles to meet up with his last girlfriend before the asteroid fiasco, and while he was completely underpowered to survive at the start, that changes over time, and he becomes part of the solution. This is a fun watch, even if you aren't trying to see all the nominated movies this year,