Kurt Halfyard
Toronto, Canada

Scientist by day, cinema aficionado by night. Film festival addict and family man. Kurt has been writing for Twitch since pretty much the inception of the site and can often be found in rep-houses around Toronto taking his kids to films that are rather inappropriate for their age.

Review: TCHOUPITOULAS Offers A Tour of New Orleans Through Innocent Eyes
Want to knock a decade (or three) off your life? For 80 minutes at least, experiencing New Orleans through the lens of the Ross Brothers' camera in Tchoupitoulas, with the guidance and vitality of the film's three youthful leads, will... More »
  

Nicolas Winding Refn Wrecks Ryan Gosling's Face For First ONLY GOD FORGIVES Poster

The first poster for Only God Forgives, Nicholas Winding Refn's follow-up to Drive features a quite battered (but still beautiful) Ryan Gosling.   Set in Asia but with the structure and tone of a western, you certainly wouldn't get that... More »
  

Twitch in Bondage: The Kids Talk THUNDERBALL
Twitch is not the youngest of movie websites, and a number of the writing staff have children who are old enough to understand and consume media in a way that is both raw and fresh, but also with the inklings... More »
  

Review: CAFE DE FLORE Grooves To A Superb Metaphysical Tune
In an annual New Years tradition of merriment and bonding, the patriarch of a decidedly secular family asks for God's blessing in the coming year.  It is a contradictory detail such as this - a combination of the pragmatic and... More »
  

Counterpoint Review: CLOUD ATLAS (Shrugged)
Where to begin with Cloud Atlas? I admire the chutzpah of such an unusually expensive film experiment, but how far can admiration of ambition go if the result is so tedious? In his review published during the Toronto International Film... More »
  

Lynne Ramsay aims to tackle Moby Dick ... In Space
We Need To Talk About Kevin was not only one of the best films of 2011, but it also appears to be enabling its director, Lynne Ramsay, to embark on some more commercial projects. With her Natalie Portman / Michael... More »
  

Reel Asian Sneaks a Few Titles. The One You Should Care About is COLD STEEL
Having its sweet 16th anniversary this year, Toronto's Reel Asian Film Festival continues to showcase cinema from from China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kashmir, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand; this also includes films from Canada and USA with an Asian bent.... More »
  

Hey Toronto! Swarez's UNDYING LOVE is Playing Tonite at LITTLE TERRORS
Justin McConnell's semi-regular monthly short film festival, Little Terrors, gets a comfy new home at the Carlton Cinema in Toronto.  The series showcases the best in horror short-fimmaking to a city that seems to constantly hunger for genre, and is... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: BYZANTIUM is Stuck Between Worlds
Two sisters try to lay low in Dublin while being pursued by long-coated inspectors. Having committed a rather kinetic and conspicuous murder in the opening sequence of the film, the Webb sisters are actually a pair of highland blood suckers, a 200 year... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: COME OUT AND PLAY Drops the Ball
A textbook case of a remake failing to improve on a classic original, Come Out And Play not only loses the context of the hidden Narciso Ibáñez Serrador directed gem, which was released on the heels of the Vietnam War... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Feature: WHO CAN KILL A CHILD? Continues to Horrify
[With Come Out and Play, the remake of Who Can Kill a Child?, set to debut at TIFF tonight, we decided to take another look at the original film.] I read a quote from Adam Balz over at NotComing.com that... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: GANGS OF WASSEYPUR is the Epic Crime Saga of the Year
Pulling back, deliberately and slowly, from a soap-opera musical on the TV (involving, of all things, character introductions), the 315-minute long Gangs of Wasseypur kicks off with a single shot, Johnnie To-style unbroken assault on the stronghold of Faizal Khan with... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: TO THE WONDER Emotes on Our Ephemeral Existence
"Pourqoi pas Toujours?" (Why not always?) is the question on the mind of Terrence Malick in his latest emotive cinematic meditation -- it could have easily been the title. Here he is less concerned with the connections between the personal... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: THE BRASS TEAPOT Has Faith in American Middle Class Virtue
The Brass Teapot feels like something that Spielberg would have produced in the mid to late 1980s. It mixes the overall story themes and narrative structure of Gremlins with the goofy morality play of The 'Burbs and the money sense of... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: HELLBENDERS Raises a Little, Uh, Hell
"I'm a woman, and you're a Catholic. Everything I do is a sin." -- A taste of the in-your-face comedy on display in J.T. Petty's Hellbenders.Based upon the writer-director's own graphic novel, and pitched somewhere between The Evil Dead and Ghostbusters... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: THE IMPOSSIBLE is a Little Bit Soggy
"Just close your eyes and think of something nice" is a refrain repeated several times during J.A. Bayona's Tsunami disaster film that sees Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts (and their three children) attempt to re-unite after a tidal wave destroys... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: THE HUNT Searches for Provocation (and Finds it in an Unexpected Place)
There is no arguing the craft on display in Thomas Vinterberg's small-town, big-drama showcase The Hunt. Mads Mikkelsen turns in the performance of his career - and if you look back on his career so far, that is an impressive feat... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: 7 BOXES Are All Full of Genre Treats!
It's a hot day in the capital city of Paraguay and the exchange rate for US Dollars is running as high as the mercury in Asunción's bustling marketplace. Narrow rows of stalls glutted with people, consumer goods, and hanging animal... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: REBELLE (War Witch) is Bloody and Compassionate
Let us start off by saying that Kim Nyugen's Rebelle, is easily the best Canadian war film ever produced.  I know, you say that there aren't many Canadian war films made outside of National Film Board documentaries and that big... More »
  

TIFF 2012 Review: I DECLARE WAR Goes To Battle with Boys and Bullying
One weekend day a number of the nerdier kids from the local middle school gather their sticks and twine and balloons filled with red dye, and head into the local woods to play capture-the-flag.  Oh, those tweens today with their... More »
  
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FEAR & LOATHING AT CANNES, PART 3: EVERYTHING IS WONDERFUL AND I'M TRIPPING BALLS

CHAPTER 6: THERE'S NOTHING MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN A PURPLE BEACH SMOTHERED IN MELTING TROMMETTES DURING A CRIMSON TINGED SUNSET ON THE FRENCH RIVERIA, HOLY SHIT I'M TRIPPING MY FUCKING FACE OFF.It's night. When the fuck did it become night? I'm naked. Where the fuck did my clothes go? I'm on... More »

Destroy All Monsters: I Think We've Been This Way Before, Mr. Spock

They can remember it for you wholesale, and they do. At some point, we licensed our pop cultural nostalgia to a handful of multinational conglomerates (well, to be fair, they always owned the licenses) and now they're selling them back to us - though, I guess, not at wholesale, but... More »

Interview: Twitch Talks to HANGOVER III's Ken Jeong

Ken Jeong may often play a lunatic on both big and small screen, but in person it's quite disarming to see just how calm and considerate he comes across. While he got his big screen start in Judd Apatow's Knocked Up, Jeong's real breakthrough was taking a small-on-paper role... More »

Hollywood Beat: Notes On Cutting The Cord And NBC's Genre Programs

I cut the cable cord last year, but I'm not always happy about it. I had to wait a year before seeing Season 2 of Game of Thrones, for example, and will have to wait to see Season 3 until next year. I only have to wait to see Mad... More »

Twitchvision: Talking STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, MUD and THE ICEMAN

Another Twitchvision chat with Scott Laurie, this time me gushing about J.J.'s latest Star Trek film, which I unabashedly loved.Also talked about he fabbo Mud, and the less fabbo The Iceman, both with Michael Shannon doing his thing.Video embedded below.Update: Was asked to come in today and pick a few... More »
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