About Defacto Film Reviews
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique site where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. It will feature weekly reviews as well as lists and more.
Originally formed in 2002 under Defactoweb.com, our website’s chief film critic is Robert Joseph Butler. His top ten lists were featured under Movie City News. His reviews have also been published at Michigan Movie Magazine and on Michigan’s longest running film school website, MPIFilm.com. His reviews have also been featured and published in The Oakland Press as well, which is one of Michigan’s largest newspaper publications.
He later went on to become an award-winning filmmaker of several independent short films including such festival hits as The Spirit of Isabel and Within, which won the Audience Choice Award at the 2015 Cinetopia International Film Festival. His short film “The Girl on the Mat” won Best Screenplay at the 2017 Queens World Film Festival. His most recent feature length movie, “Blood Immortal,” won Best Horror Feature Film at the 24th annual Indie Gathering International Film Festival and is now available to own on DVD and is available on Digital streaming platforms.
Using grassroots support, the site is devoted to celebrating independent and art-house cinema, as well as to high-crafted films that tell engaging stories with vision, focus, and skill.
Defacto Film Reviews is a unique case where the film critics are also filmmakers themselves. We will give readers comprehensible, honest, and erudite analysis of each film.
Rating System–4 Stars
Masterpiece/Top 10 Worthy
Exceptional
Quality
Mediocre
Poor
Reviews published in
Radu Jude’s Dracula
Trash cinema is a term not lightly used by this reviewer. First, how does one define or intend the use of that term? John Waters and Andy Warhol both made “trash” yet their films have-mostly-stood [...]
Nouvelle Vague
The French New Wave is one of the most important movements in the history of cinema, and Jean-Luc Godard is one of the prime movers within. His film, Breathless, released in 1960, is a milestone. Nouvelle Vague, the [...]
It Was Just an Accident
Iranian master filmmaker Jafar Panahi returns with his greatest film to date in his impressive filmography, It Was Just an Accident, a dramatically charged and timely political thriller that is courageous and bold as it [...]
Shelby Oaks
Anyone around the early days of the Youtube film scene is most certainly familiar with Chris Stuckmann. A warm and welcoming figure whose passion for film separated him from the pack of early-Youtube film critics, [...]
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere
Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere is a film that does not have as important a reason for existing as it seems to believe. Jeremy Allen White, superb as a tormented chef on The Bear, is [...]
Frankenstein
Wintry, chilling, and captivating, Guillermo Del Toro's adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is a breathtaking retelling of the classic two-century-old novel; it's a horror movie that feels Shakespearian in just how dramatically charged it is. [...]
Mr. Scorsese
Martin Scorsese has been making feature films since 1967. He had been dabbling in short films since his teen years. This is a long and, despite the reputation, a rather diverse career. It is no [...]
After the Hunt
Director Luca Guadagnino's exceptional and dramatically charged double features from last year, Challengers and Queer, were both skillfully made films that didn't quite get the year-end movie push as they deserved, resulting in major subs [...]
Black Phone 2
The Black Phone, based off a short story by author Joe Hill, was a surprise hit in its summer 2022 release. Directed by Scott Derrickson and co-written alongside C. Robert Cargill -- a former film [...]
The Mastermind
The Mastermind, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt, is a seeming change of pace for the gifted film maker. An art heist crime caper is not her usual domain, yet here, Reichardt explores many of [...]
If I Had Legs I’d Kick You
Actress and filmmaker Mary Bronstein who is the wife of frequent Safdie Bros collaborator Ronald Bronstein directs her first film since her 2008 film Yeast, that co-stars Greta Gerwig. Based on Bronstein's own life experiences [...]
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Kiss of the Spider Woman is the new adaptation of the 1992/93 musical based on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel, which had in 1986 been turned into an Oscar winning film from Hector Babenco. This version [...]
Tron: Ares
The original 1982 Tron film was released amidst arguably the greatest summer movie season ever for the sci-fi genre, wedged in between E.T., John Carpenter's The Thing, Blade Runner and Star Trek 2: The Wrath [...]
John Candy: I Like Me
John Candy: I Like Me, from director Colin Hanks, produced by his father, Tom, is a sprawling and at times, near hagiographic look at the actor and comedian, John Candy. This is one of the [...]
