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 Best Films of 2019-Editors’ Choice
2019 Year in Cinema The 2010s will always hold a special place in my heart as the decade when I developed my love of the movies and my passion for filmmaking. So it actually hurts [...]
The 100 Best Films of the 2010s
Due to living in a time when online discussion of cinema tends to focus exclusively on the “film of the week”, just so individuals can feel as if they are “part of the discussion”, too [...]
Underwater
Deep below the surface of the ocean, within the Mariana Trench, the Tian cooperation is drilling the sea floor for resources. Among the crew of this complex rig is Nora Price (Kristen Stewart), a deep-thinking, [...]
The Best Films of 2019 – Robert Butler
2019 Year in Cinema How could anyone think cinema is dead when so many films this year were exceptional? Quite a few were masterpieces--some were overpraised, a handful were formally daring, and there were numerous [...]
The Best Films of 2019 – Noah Damron
2019 is certainly a highlight year for cinema, so making a list of just 10 films is nearly impossible. Just naming this many films means leaving out many others I truly cared for. There are [...]
The Grudge (2020)
The pieces for a fresh remake of "Ju-On: The Grudge" are certainly in place. The second remake of the influential Japanese horror flick, following the 2004 American smash hit, also titled, "The Grudge", boasts plenty [...]
Spies in Disguise
In the high octane world of secret agents, there is no better spy than Lance Sterling (Will Smith). He’s one of the agency’s top agents, able to take down the world’s toughest bad guys and [...]
Little Women
Greta Gerwig's (“Lady Bird”) new version of Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel "Little Women" is an engaging and tender success. The latest adaptation is vividly and delicately produced, and it's very faithful and equally modern [...]
Uncut Gems
The Safdie brothers (Josh and Benny) have already made a name for themselves in the indie world with early work such as "Daddy Longlegs" and "Heaven Knows What", In 2017, they gained large notoriety for [...]
A Hidden Life
"A Hidden Life", a chronicle of a conscientious objector during the rise of the Third Reich, is Terrence Malick's most challenging and dreary film to date. This time around his narrative is more focused than [...]
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
It goes without saying this review will be spoiler-free, but in order to do a proper review, I will indeed be talking about basic plot details. If you don't want to know anything about this [...]
The Two Popes
Reflecting back on the past decade, we have had quite a few memorable films about clerics wrestling with their faith, such as Martin Scorsese's 2016 masterpiece "Silence", Paul Schrader's "First Reformed", and Xavier Beasvoise's complex [...]
Black Christmas (2019)
On the surface, "Black Christmas" should work in spades. Directed by Sophia Takal, this new take on the classic slasher film has all the ingredients necessary to make a big stamp on the horror genre [...]
Jumanji: The Next Level
by Ben Rothrock Two years ago, four high school kids, Spencer (Alex Wolff), Fridge (Ser’Darius Blain), Martha (Morgan Turner), and Bethany (Madison Iseman) discovered Jumanji, a magical board game that turned itself into a dangerous [...]
Richard Jewell
Clint Eastwood's latest film gives an eerie glimpse of what it's like to be wrongfully accused. "Richard Jewell" explores the tragic chronicle of the late Atlanta security guard who, during the 1996 Olympics reported a [...]