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
Miss Juneteenth
Just when you thought filmmaking needed stronger and more diverse voices, both in Hollywood and indie cinema, along comes the perfect timing of "Miss Juneteenth", an enormously enjoyable celebration about great parenting and Black womanhood [...]
Da 5 Bloods
“Da 5 Bloods,” Spike Lee's follow-up to his Oscar adaptation of “BlacKkKlansman,” is another impassioned and timely rendition of the challenges of our modern era. Top-lined by Delroy Lindo, who has appeared in other Spike [...]
Buffalo ’66 (Spotlight Review)
“We’re taking pictures for my parents… Do you understand that? We’re taking pictures like we’re a couple. Like, we like each other. Like, we’re husband and wife, and we span time together. We span time [...]
Essential Civil Rights Movies
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution put an end to slavery and involuntary servitude in 1865, but it didn't put an end to social injustices and inequality. The recent tragic murders of Ahmad Arbery, [...]
End of Sentence
It has taken the newcomer producer-turned-director Elfar Adalsteins eight years to get his debut feature film off the ground, aptly titled "End of Sentence."His first feature is an overly familiar but multi-nuanced melodrama about the fragile relationship between a father and son (superbly played by John Hawkes and Logan Lerman), whose vulnerabilities and dynamics go through transitions and reconciliation upon their trip from Alabama to Ireland. With the right word-of--mouth and [...]
The Lovebirds
In an alternate reality, The Lovebirds would have opened in theaters nationwide the first week of April. However, we don't live in that world and after the pandemic delayed every upcoming film in its path, [...]
The Painter and the Thief
The documentary film "The Painter and the Thief" revisits familiar ideas about unconventional love that has been explored in numerous indie films. The central premise of director Benjamin Ree's second feature documentary is a bizarre [...]
The Trip to Greece
Reprising their roles from "The Trip," "The Trip to Italy", "The Trip to Spain," we now have the fourth installment of "The Trip" movie series with "The Trip to Greece," starring comedians Steve Coogan and [...]
Dark Water (Spotlight Review)
Over twenty years ago, infamous Japanese director Hideo Nakata launched his career with the J-horror hits Ringu (1998) and it’s follow up Ringu 2 (1999). In collaboration with novelist Kôji Suzuki, the two were able [...]
Blood and Money
The title of John Barr's glum and equally taut "Blood and Money" is an unimaginative movie title, but the movie is not. While certainly a mixed bag, the film goes from feeling lethargic to engrossing [...]
Crew Call Podcast 5/8/2020
Our podcast appearances on MPI Crew Call is now on iHeart Radio. Give it a listen as podcast host Sara Mahmood along with Defacto film reviewers Noah Damron and Robert Butler talk about some of [...]
How to Build a Girl
Coky Giedroyc's "How to Build a Girl" offers an inside, honest look as being a teenager that holds some charm, but is vastly inconsistent with its tonal shifts, even when there is character arcs the [...]
Spaceship Earth
The subtext of Matt Wolf's highly essential documentary, “Spaceship Earth ,” is just as relevant as the text, in this case, a rather straightforward documentary about a group of scientists and pioneers that embarked on [...]
The Naked Prey (Spotlight Review)
“Stripped, weaponless, alone and only ten desperate seconds ahead of the killers…” When a group of elephant hunters encounters a dangerous South African tribe, Cornel Wilde finds himself fighting for his life in the [...]
The Wretched
It’s often difficult for any modern horror flick to feel fresh or become a game changer particularly in the case of this low-budget, homegrown film produced here in Michigan (reportedly shot in Omena, MI), impressively [...]