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
Firestarter
You might recall the poster or DVD artwork of Drew Barrymore as a child standing with a look of anxiety with flames behind her in the 1984 horror-thriller titled Firestarter or recall reading the original [...]
On the Count of Three
The despairing, bittersweet, and adequately directed film by stand-up comedian and actor Jerrod Carmichael serves him well in his directorial feature film debut in On the Count of Three, an uneven but deeply layered two-handler [...]
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
There are few things that can tickle the anticipation of both film buffs and general moviegoers than the announcement of renowned filmmaker/Detroit native Sam Raimi returning to the superhero genre, now joining the MCU. Seeing [...]
Petite Maman
Petite Maman, the stunning fifth film by French auteur Celine Sciamma (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Tomboy, Girlhood) finds her exploring childhood innocence once again as she combines fantasy elements without fantastical creatures, but [...]
The Bad Guys
Animated films have taken a leap of faith in the last decade, from animation ranging heavily from hand-drawn scene packs to full-fledged 3D animation taking the stage in recent years. And it’s the feat that [...]
All the Old Knives
It’s not often you see somewhat seasoned documentarians transition to feature filmmaking, especially films with an underlying espionage narrative but Janus Metz Pedersen (Love on Delivery, Armadillo, Ticket to Paradise) strolls in with an adequate [...]
The Northman
At just his third feature film under his belt after the richly atmospheric, The Witch, and the darkly absurdist, The Lighthouse, filmmaker Robert Eggers takes his deconstructionist approach to the Viking legend. His newest film, [...]
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
Tom Gormican's The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent might be self-aware, but the film certainly delivers some very hard belly laughs. A two-hander buddy movie is powered by the chemistry between Nicolas Cage and Pedro [...]
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
Recent years have not been kind to the Wizarding World brand. From creator JK Rowling sabotaging her legacy, outing herself as a transphobic bigot. There’s the ongoing legal troubles for Johnny Depp, forcing the studio [...]
Paris, 13th District
An elegantly made, playful, intimate, and ultimately sincere take on love in the modern era that consists of dating apps, social media, hook-ups, friends with benefits, and other newfound desires, Jacques Audiard's visually slick and [...]
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Ever since video games took the world by storm with their beyond imaginative worlds and beautifully written narratives, Hollywood has been yearning to turn a profit by creating film adaptations of them. But just like [...]
1997 Retrospective: The Best Films of 1997
The monumental film of the time was James Cameron's Titanic, which broke box-office records and won 11 Oscars; including best picture and director. It was a landmark piece of cinema that ended up being a [...]
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The absurdist duo of Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (aka The Daniels) conjures up a dizzying, formally visual, and messy metaphysical confection of many bombastic ideas in Everything Everywhere All at Once, that appear to [...]