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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

4 Stars Masterpiece/Top 10 Worthy

de facto film reviews 3.5 stars Exceptional

de facto film reviews 3 stars Quality

de facto film reviews 2 stars Mediocre

de facto film reviews 1 star Poor

Reviews published in

The Oakland Press – Oakland County, MI News, Sports, Weather, Things to Do

Flow

By |12/04/2024|2024, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

Flow, the new animated film from Latvian director Gints Zilbalodis, is a cell shaded treat of wonders both visual and aural. A fantastical tale told without dialogue, the film follows a cat, and its eventual [...]

Oh, Canada

By |12/03/2024|2024, 3-Stars, Film Review|

Oh, Canada is the newest film from the writer-director Paul Schrader, here reunited with his American Gigolo star, Richard Gere, and once again, as with Affliction, based on a novel by the late Russell Banks, to whom the film [...]

Moana 2

By |12/01/2024|2 Stars, 2024, Film Review|

Disney's Moana was a solid hit when it was released over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2016, but became an even larger hit thanks to endless streams on Disney+. The film, which boasted a few terrific [...]

Maria

By |11/29/2024|2024, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

Chillian filmmaker Pablo Larrain delivers another intoxicating biopic about privileged women in peril. With Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021), and now Maria, Larrain has now made a subgenre about wealthy, emotionally broken women. Like Jackie [...]

Wicked

By |11/23/2024|2024, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

The 2003 Broadway musical, Wicked, became an instant pop culture phenomenon when it first opened. The musical, starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, was an adaptation of the [...]

Red One

By |11/17/2024|2 Stars, 2024, Film Review|

Dwayne Johnson's status as a Mega Movie Star is undeniable. The producer/star has seen countless blockbusters over his esteemed career, but recently his output has left much to be desired. His Netflix project Red Notice [...]

Bird

By |11/08/2024|2 Stars, 2024, Film Review|

Andrea Arnold is a director that has long focused on realism. Yet, in her new feature, Bird, she has experimented with elements of the surreal. She has still rooted the story in grim situations, photographed in [...]

Blitz

By |11/08/2024|2024, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

Just because Steve McQueen made a WWII movie doesn't mean it's this contrived Oscar "Bait" movie, as some other reviewers have labeled it. For starters, McQueen has always delivered emotionally charged films, and he has [...]

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