Neve’s Vera is the daughter of wealthy parents who have set her up in a ridiculously nice loft despite their objections to boyfriend Ford (Fred Weller), a fast talking street hustler. We don’t know they’re in a relationship immediately, as Toback shows them separately and uses contrasting music to tell both of their stories (Vera: Classical; Ford: Hip-hop). Things eventually end up in an Indecent Proposal situation, where Ford essentially pimps Vera out to a wealthy Italian count (Dominic Chianese) so he can turn a quick buck. I mean, it’s not like Vera needs the money, right?

I dug Toback’s Two Girls and a Guy, but he lost me with Black and White. Loved is a step in the right direction, but it still plays like a film made by an aging writer-director who is still trying to prove he’s hip. Instead, it comes off as Larry Clark-Lite ®, with the sex included and glorified just to be titillating. Campbell’s performance is the type that people will call "brave" because she spends a lot of screen minutes in the buff, and has the aforementioned girl-girl scene. It’s too bad she’s wasted in such a middling picture.

3-Iron – Kim Ki-Duk’s unusual and unusually affecting romance is the closest I’ve seen to a movie being knocked out of the park so far here in Toronto (double to the gap, minimally). It’s also the first decent love story since the scintillating Before Sunset. Strong words, I know. And the final shot is just as wonderful, too.

Tae-suk (Jae Hee) spends his day hanging restaurant menus on the doors of houses in affluent areas of the city, and then picking the locks of those which don’t remove the menus when he returns. He’s not a thief, though. He might watch a little television, and use the shower, and take a little food, but Tae-suk makes up for it by doing a little light cleaning, or laundry, or repair to broken appliances. When he breaks out the camera, your filthy mind might think about toothbrushes being put into a bad place, but our protagonist is good people.

One of the houses he "uses" isn’t quite as empty as Tae-suk thinks. Sun-hwa (Lee Seung-yun), recently beaten by an overbearing husband, is hiding inside. The two strike up a fast but completely wordless relationship as she joins him in his adventures…until the cops catch up with them. They’re the Mickey and Mallory Knox of bizarre felony! Very cool, very original, and very recommendable for people into off-beat romances (read: nothing with Kate Fucking Hudson), since the two leads speak a combined total of three words the enire movie.

Being Julia – It says a lot about the state of Canadian cinema when a Hungarian director’s film opens the big festival here in Toronto. The slot is generally reserved for Serious Canadian Drama, but this year, we get István Szabó’s Being Julia. It’s a wildly uneven blend of ‘30s screwball comedies and the kind of Grand Guignol melodrama that made me wish Charles Busch was starring instead of the wildly uneven Annette Bening.

Bening is the titular Julia Lambert, star of the West End theatre run by her husband (Jeremy Irons). Julia ain’t getting any younger, and the prospect of losing her "leading lady" status triggers a midlife crisis that involves bedding an American (Shaun Evans) the same age as her son and, strangely, helping to promote the career of a completely untalented young actress (Lucy Punch) eager to become The Next Big Thing. Well, the word "strangely" can only be used if you’re a dolt who can’t tell Julia is going to throw everyone for a loop during the opening night of the theatres next play.

Maury Chaykin, Miriam Margolyes and Juliet Stevenson appear only to up the C-list art house star content, and Bruce Greenwood surfaces seemingly to make the proceedings seem more Canadian. A real opening night dud that proves it's way funner to be John Malkovich than it is Julia.

The Alzheimer Case – Erik Van Looy noirs it up Belgian-style in The Alzheimer Case, a picture about a mercenary hitman in his 60s who is in the early stages of the eponymous disease that makes it tough to remember stuff. So he writes himself messages on his arm with a black marker. Yeah, it sounded like Memento to me, too. But Case isn’t a rip-off at all.

Angelo Ledda (Jan Decleir) knows his time with his memory is dwindling, so he decides to take one last case (my favorite movie cliché…not!) involving corrupted officials and child prostitution. In a way, it’s way more like Suspect Zero than Memento in that the police are busy trying to catch Angelo, even though he’s doing his best to rid the city of some pretty awful people before his brain goes all kablooey.

Case played waaaay too long, but it was still fun to see an older guy kick so much ass. At least one who isn’t called Sean Connery. Why should he have all the good times?

Human Touch – I’m not sure I can recall a public screening where, with a fairly high-profile filmmaker in attendance, an audience simply got up and left without even throwing some sympathy applause out there. That’s what happened with Paul Cox’s Human Touch, an insufferably boring picture that actually made one guy shake his fist at the screen as he walked out. And it wasn’t even me!

Anna (Jacqueline McKenzie) is trying to raise money so her choir group can take a trip to China. When an older, wealthy man shows interest in a potential monetary contribution, Anna is dispatched to make sure his gift is generous enough. Even though she has a boyfriend (think Billy Chenoweth), Anna has no trouble posing for nude photos with this older dude (think Caleb Nichol). Trouble, as luck would have it, ensues rather quickly. The redeeming qualities of Touch are so far and few between, I’m no longer sure they ever existed. A bad way to end the day.