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
The Invisible Man
by Ben Rothrock Right from the beginning, The Invisible Man isn’t setting out to be just another reboot. Most modern reboots, especially ones based on well known properties, try to get by on a half-baked [...]
Young Ahmed
They are the modern masters of cinematic parables and social realism, the Belgium filmmaking sibling duo known as the Dardenne brothers continue their empathetic and emotionally raw sensibilities with their latest film "Young Ahmed". A [...]
Weekend Box Office Report: “Hedgehog” Stays Ahead Of The Pack!
In a much tighter-than-expected race, Paramount's video game adaptation Sonic the Hedgehog managed to fend off Disney/20th Century's The Call of the Wild. Barely hanging on to the top spot, Sonic dipped 55% from last weekend's surprise $58 [...]
Brahms: The Boy 2
"The Boy", released in January of 2016, was something of a moderate sleeper hit opening to a decent $10 million before continuing to gross nearly $75 million worldwide. The film, while nothing substantial, was a [...]
The Call of the Wild
High above the reaches of society, in the middle of the Gold Rush of the 1800s, the world is still a relatively new place. This was a time when we didn’t have computers to scan [...]
Scorsese Wrote Bong Joon Ho a Heartfelt Letter After Oscars
After making historic strides with "Parasite" at the Academy Awards earlier this year with "Parasite", the very first South Korean feature film to compete and win Oscars, including its first foreign-language film victory, which also [...]
Horse Girl
The Sundance film Horse Girl has landed a wide release on Netflix. Directed by Jeff Baena and co-written by him and its star Alison Brie, it's the story of a socially awkward woman who’s life [...]
Zombi Child
Haiti is the ghost that plagues Bertrand Bonello, and in "Zombi Child" it is far from being a ghost film, and contrary to what the title leads you to believe, its also far from being [...]
The Photograph (2020)
Valentine's Day has usually been a mixed bag in terms of quality romantic films at the box office. With the highly profitable but much maligned "Fifty Shades" trilogy and 2010's ensemble film "Valentine's Day", the [...]
Sonic the Hedgehog
Based on the Sega video game franchise of the same name, this movie had all the ingredients to be a disaster. Video game movies, as many already know, don’t have the greatest track record in [...]
The Assistant
With sexual harassment in the workplace finally being thrust into the media spotlight, we are now seeing more films exploring such wretched behavior. The #MeToo drama "The Assistant" is a gripping and unnerving film that [...]
2nd Annual Defacto Film Awards
To celebrate the Oscars, we are pleased to announce the Best of 2019 nominees and winners in fourteen categories. We selected the top five picks in the following categories: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Lead [...]
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)
When we first meet Harley Quinn in "Birds of Prey", she's just been dumped by the Joker. Doing what most people do after a bad breakup, Harley gets drunk, cuts her hair, eats junk food, [...]
Road to the Oscars 2020: Predictions
"1917" will walk away the nights biggest winner. Brad Pitt will win his first Oscar. Joaquin Phoenix will also win his first Oscar. "The Irishman" will walk way with no wins, as we will still [...]
Sam Mendes Retrospective-Best Mendes Films, Ranked
Studio director Sam Mendes has certainly left his footprint in the cinematic world. Winning the Oscar for both best picture and best director at the 2000 Academy Awards right out of the gate for his [...]
Gretel & Hansel
by Ben Rothrock As we continue to grow more sensitive of the world around us and the horrors of the adult world, we continue to censor and change the stories of the past to reflect [...]
The Turning
In a remote, country-side mansion in the 1990s, young school teacher Kate (Mackenzie Davis) has just accepted to be the nanny and tutor to a young girl named Flora (Brooklynn Prince), who has been recently [...]