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
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice
Tim Burton's original 1988 Beetlejuice was something of a pop culture phenomenon in its initial release. Just the second feature film from Burton, Beetlejuice was largely responsible for establishing the filmmaker's iconic sensibilities. In the [...]
The Deliverence
Have you ever wondered what a horror film from Tyler Perry would look like? With The Deliverance, director Lee Daniels has provided that answer. Drawn from a purported case of real life haunting, the film is [...]
The Crow (2024)
The year was 1994; Kurt Cobain is dead. OJ is on trial and star Brandon Lee, son of legend Bruce Lee, has died on the set of his soon-to-be-iconic role in The Crow. The original [...]
Between the Temples
Nathan Silver's Between the Temples is one of those unique films that feels like it's made in the 1970s. It is very much a modern take on Harold and Maude, as it focuses on taboo [...]
Blink Twice
Blink Twice is a tight and occasionally chuckle-worthy thriller that showcases the willpower of women and the cruelty of men in a refreshing way.
2009 Retrospective: The Best Films of 2009
Most modern film buffs and pundits are fans of 2009 cinema. Many treasure the year for its box-office spectacles like Avatar and other high-caliber genre films like District 9, and the year had a lot [...]
Alien: Romulus
Ridley Scott's original 1979 masterpiece Alien not only birthed a larger subgenre of horror, but has since launched a major Hollywood franchise. Blessing cinema with an all-time great leading heroine in Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, [...]
It Ends With Us
The smash hit novel It Ends With Us, penned by author Colleen Hoover, has become a smash hit over the years thanks to a large following on social media. The 2016 novel, loosely based on [...]
The Dead Don’t Hurt
The Dead Don’t Hurt, the second film directed by Viggo Mortensen, who also produced, wrote, composed the score for and also stars in, is a peculiar western. It is both traditional and counter-traditional. There are [...]
The Beast Within
The Beast Within is a technically pleasing dark fable that is sorely missing engaging storytelling prowess.
Deadpool & Wolverine
In the years since the release of 2018's Deadpool 2, the filmmaking landscape, and pop culture as a whole, has drastically shifted for the Superhero genre. The corporate merger between Disney and Fox has now [...]
National Anthem
What could have been an opportunist film filled with queer archetypes and gazes, Luke Gifford's National Anthem instead is a visually poetic, sensually designed, and liberating adventure about the power of community and how family [...]
Fly Me to the Moon
Fly Me to the Moon, from director Greg Berlanti, is a fantasy concoction of commentary and conspiracy, with heaping helping of romantic comedy, in a creation that fails to fully ignite.