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
Michigan Showcase: Thorns
Thorns, the latest prominent independent horror production from Michigan, features horror icon Doug Bradley (Hellraiser) amidst a classic clash of religion versus science—or, in this case, religion through science. Michigan native Douglas Schulze (Hellmaster, Dark [...]
Driving Madeleine
With Driving Madeleine, director and co-writer Christian Caron, has wrought a minor miracle, in terms of striking a balance between comedy and drama, and between philosophy and action, all of which propel this film as [...]
Stopmotion
Horror films focused on artists dealing with madness are certainly nothing new. From the great Vincent Price in House of Wax, to Jack Nicholson in The Shining, to Yahya Abdul-Mateen in the recent Candyman legacy [...]
About Dry Grasses
Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan continues his grandiose creative momentum with his latest art-house dramatic epic, About Dry Grasses. With his 2014 Palme d'Or winner Winter Sleep (which made my top ten list in 2014) [...]
Io Capitano
Io Capitano marks a significant comeback for a well-known Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, Tale of Tales, Dogman). The harrowing feature takes viewers into a visceral world of migrant struggles that many privileged people simplistically [...]
They Shot the Piano Player
Audiences looking for historical perspective and something unique, not to mention a tribute to music, will find it in They Shot the Piano Player, a refreshing new animated film by the filmmaking duo of Fernando [...]
Bob Marley: One Love
Since the enormous box office success of Bohemian Rhapsody, the Oscar-winning biopic of the band Queen, biopics have seen a resurgence. One biopic that has been in the works for several decades has been that [...]
God & Country
God & Country from producer Rob Reiner (The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally) and director Dan Partland may not seem to reveal too much as a whole, especially to individuals who follow politics very [...]
Madame Web
It would be an understatement to say the Sony-Marvel universe has not achieved the same success as the MCU. While the superhero genre as of this writing has experienced a cultural shift where audiences have [...]
Lisa Frankenstein
The Frankenstein retellings are still in full swing following 2023's The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster and Birth/Rebirth. This time, with Lisa Frankenstein, acclaimed indie filmmaker Diablo Cody lends her acerbic dialogue and darkly [...]
The Monk and the Gun
Bhutan's young genius filmmaker, Pawo Choyning Dorji, progresses as a filmmaker with The Monk and the Gun, a satirical, alluring, spiritual, and divine film that contemplates the power of democracy, human progress, and tranquility. Set [...]
The Taste of Things
A passionately crafted and pointed look at cooking, cuisine, love, and romance are the aspects that celebrate the human spirit. The Taste of Things delivers a highly satisfying story concerning marital drama and the striving [...]
Perfect Days
A tender, moving, and accessible character study, iconic German filmmaker Wim Wenders latest film, Perfect Days, spotlights internal longing in modern-day Japan and the film is about a bathroom custodian who lives his life through [...]
The Promised Land
The sweeping historical epic is a longtime favorite genre for filmmakers. Even now, outside of the genre’s heyday, there are still quite a few that pop up. Recent examples include Napoleon, The Woman King, and The Last Duel. [...]
Orion and the Dark
What do Werner Herzog, Tame Impala, and Dreamworks have in common? Netflix's newest animated feature film, Orion and the Dark, adapted from the book of the same name by Emma Yarlett. Despite the relatively poor [...]
How to Have Sex
An emotionally raw, energetic, fractured and finally poignant coming-of-age drama about a trio of young women who go on a summer trip together to a beach resort on the Greek islands of Crete for a [...]
The Peasants
Continuing the much-valued painted animation technique that was used previously with Loving Vincent (2017), married directors DK Welchman and Hugh Welchman deliver a despairing, sometimes grueling, and tiring adaptation of Władysław Reymont's classic Polish novel [...]
Pictures of Ghosts
Bacurau writer/director Kleber Mendonça Filho's personal and in-depth Pictures of Ghosts explores the history of his home town of Recife, while examining the deep cultural impact of Brazilian movie palaces. Using archival footage and home [...]