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
Top 10 Films of 2016
by Robert Joseph Butler 2016 will be a year that will be remembered for its long list of celebrity deaths and for being a polarizing election year. While we are living in very polarizing times [...]
10 Cloverfield Lane
10 Cloverfield Lane (2016, USA, d. Dan Trachtenberg, 103 Minutes) by Jesse Stringer 10 Cloverfield Lane came into the public consciousness as abruptly as a new Beyoncé album. About midway through January, a [...]
Out of Which Past?
by Barry Germansky Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko (2001) proves that genre does not exist outside the enterprise of convenient label-making. Due to the malleability of language, any work of art can fit the description [...]
Invasion of the Adulthood Snatchers
by Barry Germansky The adult world is polymorphously corrupt and lacks the imagination to recognize that "The Way Things Are" is merely a byproduct of a deteriorating sense of possibility, an epistemological rejection of [...]
Steven Spielberg, Schindler’s List, and the Crisis of Representation
by Barry Germansky Schindler's List (1993) is quite possibly the most philosophically significant dramatic narrative film ever made (and all doubt of the film's supreme philosophical status is removed from my mind if I [...]
Regression
Regression (2016, Canada/Spain, d. Alejandro Amenábar, 106 Minutes) by Jesse Stringer In the early 90’s, there was a sudden outbreak in paranoia over a speculated increase in Satanic cult rituals across the [...]
Knight of Cups (2016, USA, d. Terrence Malick)
At this moment, it’s apparent visionary Terrence Malick has given up on narrative filmmaking. He has now become a one-trick pony where his distinctive style has sadly reached a level of endless self-parody. [...]
Eddie the Eagle
Eddie the Eagle (2016, USA/United Kingdom, d. Dexter Fletcher, 105 Mins) by Robert Joseph Butler In the opening act of "Eddie the Eagle" the film hints at being a fresh and unconventional sports [...]
Pulp Revenge: Thoughts on the Ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark
by Barry Germansky This is cinema of control. How can one explain the existence of past, present, and future Nazis? One cannot, at least not at the fundamental level of explanation. How can one bring [...]
2016 Oscar Predictions
Usually the Oscars are easy to predict by late December. However, this season is looking to be a more competitive contest. While Leonardo DiCaprio and Brie Larson are clear front-runners, most of the other categories [...]
How to Be Single
How to Be Single (2016, USA, Christian Ditter, 110 Minutes) by Robert Joseph Butler Uneven, unromantic, and mostly unfunny, “How to Be Single” is a chick flick that avoids chick-flick trappings and formulas, [...]
Where To Invade Next?
Where to Invade Next? (2015, USA, d. Michael Moore, 119 Minutes) by Robert Joseph Butler The greatness with Michael Moore is that each of his recent films like Sicko, Capitalism: A Love Story, and now [...]
Zoolander 2
Zoolander 2 (2016, USA, d. Ben Stiller, 102 Minutes) by Robert Joseph Butler Ben Stiller's Zoolander 2 is a complete waste of time and human effort. At times it feels like a bizarre [...]
The Lobster
The Lobster (2016, Ireland/Greece/USA, d. Yorgos Lanthimos, 118 Minutes) by Jesse Stringer In a dystopian future, single people are arrested and held by authorities at a luxury hotel. There, they must find a [...]
Hail, Caesar!
Hail, Caesar! (2016, USA, d. Joel & Ethan Coen, 106 Minutes) by Robert Joseph Butler Hail, Caesar!, the latest comedic satire from Joel and Ethan Coen, is very disappointing. Nowhere near as personal [...]