Chameth.com - film reviews

Ready Player One

2026-06-28T00:00:00Z

Rating: 6/10 (Rewatch)

Basically what you'd expect from a Hollywood adaptation of a pulpy sci-fi book. It's held together by clichés and an obnoxious amount of pop culture references, but it's still pretty fun.

Midsommar

2026-06-27T00:00:00Z

Rating: 10/10

I started watching this pretty late in the day, and when I saw the runtime was a bit longer than I expected I thought "I'll watch the first hour or so then come back tomorrow". Well, surprise, it's now 1:30am the next day. Speaking of expectations... it's not the horror film I thought it was going to be. It's undeniably a horror, but there's so much more to it than that. It's gruesome and tense in places, but it's also heartwarming in a way that horrors just aren't. And it has that sort of vibe I associated with Bong Joon Ho's Parasite where you're not quite sure which way round to look at things. It's a beautiful film, and almost every scene is so bright and alive. Florence Pugh should have won all the awards for her portrayal of Dani. I rank all the films I watch, and this has been the toughest so far out of 263 total. When I struggle I ask "if I could only watch one of these again, which would I prefer?", and by that metric Midsommar landed right at the top. It's not the easy, fun watch of Easy A (which it displaced in my top spot); it's not something I'm going to recommend to many people; but it _is_ something special. Maybe that's just the heat talking, though; watching it a few days after midsummer on the hottest day of the year so far might have been a mistake.

Stoker

2026-06-24T00:00:00Z

Rating: 10/10

I was a full hour into this before I came to terms with the fact that Bram Stoker wasn't going to turn up somehow. The actual film though was... something. A very good something. The cinematography in particular was amazing. Some of the transitions between scenes were inspired. Mia Wasikowska and Nicole Kidman worked well in their contrasting rolls. The plot wasn't particularly complex but it still packed a few surprises, and raises some interesting questions. It's one of those films that leaves me in a weird headspace, in a way that reminds me of Black Swan.

Disclosure Day

2026-06-23T00:00:00Z

Rating: 2/10

I think I cursed this by saying "it's Spielberg, it'll probably be good" before going to the cinema. It was, in fact, not good. Laughably so in places. There are some interesting ideas in here, but they're dealt with extremely superficially. Instead there's a lot of clichés, some really bizarre crowbarred in set pieces, and a McGuffin multi-tool. None of the performances were bad, and the soundtrack was excellent, but I think that just makes it worse overall. There's a huge dissonance between the Williams soundtrack and the plot that feels like it'd be bad even for something that was designed to go direct to Netflix.

What We Do in the Shadows

2026-06-21T00:00:00Z

Rating: 9/10

Channels The Office in all the right ways. Very funny while also being heartfelt in places, and the mockumentary style works very well for it. Stu being an actual IT tech and not an actor is kind of mind blowing.