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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

Sinners

By |04/19/2025|2025, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

Director Ryan Coogler's filmography has gone from small indie to mega-blockbuster in less than a decade. Despite working with budgets astronomically higher than his debut film, Fruitvale Station, Coogler has always retained his specific voice [...]

Warfare

By |04/12/2025|2025, 3-1/2 Stars, Film Review|

Alex Garland's career as a director has consisted of just five films now, despite being a heralded screenwriter for over two decades. Garland's directorial work consists primarily of dystopian scenarios and nihilistic portrayals of worlds [...]

Holland

By |04/11/2025|1-Star, 2025, Film Review|

Holland, the newest Nicole Kidman vehicle, continues the star’s downward trajectory into predictable pap. Set in the tulip-lined streets of Holland, Michigan, the film is a fly-over tourist’s idea of Michigan. This is not a stylistic [...]

Pavements

By |03/31/2025|1-Star, 2025, Film Review|

Pavements is an unusual work. Described by its writer/director as a “semiotic experience” this four-pronged look at the rock band, Pavement, will most likely appeal to die-hard fans of the group or those who enjoy quasi-Avant [...]

The Friend

By |03/27/2025|2025, 3-Stars, Film Review|

The Friend is the newest film from Scott McGehee and David Siegel, based on an experimental, semi-autobiographical novel by Sigrid Nunez. Nunez had written the work in order to reach friends that she felt were in danger of [...]

Eephus

By |03/27/2025|2025, 3-Stars, Film Review|

With a hang-out movie ease and naturalistic characters and dialogue, co-writer and director Carson Lund in his debut feature has crafted an amusing, elegiac, and highly authentic sports comedy that is deconstructionist as well. Albeit [...]

Snow White

By |03/25/2025|2 Stars, 2025, Film Review|

Continuing the seemingly never-ending strategy of remaking every classic animated film in their arsenal, Disney's latest update of a classic story goes all the way back to the beginning. Not only Disney's first fully animated [...]

Novocaine

By |03/20/2025|2 Stars, 2025, Film Review|

Just three months into the year and already actor Jack Quaid has his second major leading role hitting theaters. After the slick sci-fi thriller Companion, Quaid returns this time as the film's hero, who cannot [...]

Mickey 17

By |03/06/2025|2 Stars, 2025, Film Review|

Mickey 17 is certainly a unique science fiction film that ineffectively combines satire, absurdity, overcooked ideas, and some one-dimensional performances, and its end result is a monotonous slugfest. More frequently we get excruciating tonal shifts [...]

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