(Reporting and writing by Jennifer Kwan)

There’s something about Sarahs.

Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Sarah McLachlan used her star power to help draw more than 350 people to a charity event on Tuesday night at the Toronto International Film Festival, crooning her songs Adia, World on Fire and Angel.

And Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, teased from the crowd an astounding C$150,000 bid for a one-week, group ski trip at a fancy private chalet, complete with lessons from ski pro Manu Gaidet.

“C$45,000, or, were you scratching your nose,” said the auctioneer, seconds after announcing the starting bid of C$40,000. Then there was a pause and the whispers grew louder.

The next and winning bid? A whopping C$150,000, but with strings attached: the Duchess has to come along.

Ferguson promised to go, but he bought the package regardless of whether she’ll show up, amfAR said.

The lavish affair at the Carlu was the first Cinema Against AIDS Toronto event, which brought together amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and Dignitas International, a medical humanitarian group.

Participants of the ritzy event, many in glamorous gowns and crisp suits, were offered a sumptuous dinner prepared by Chef Jamie Kennedy. Celebrities in attendance included Michelle Yeoh, amfAR ambassador, filmmaker Terry Gilliam, actress Miranda Richardson and singer/actress Eve.

Items up for sale at the live auction ranged from a tennis lesson with Jelena Jankovic, which fetched C$5,500, and a painting by Vivian Reiss titled “Young Bette Davis,” which garnered a winning bid of C$12,000. The event raised more than C$700,000, organizers said.

“We need to make the awareness constant and not let it sit on the backburner,” Yeoh said.

For a brief video of the event, click below.

(Reporting by Frank McGurty)

Michael Douglas has done just about all one can do in Hollywood. He grew up a member of show business royalty as the son of legendary Kirk Douglas. He won an Oscar for best movie by producing ”One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” and another one for best actor with “Wall Street.” He’s been in big blockbusters like “The American President” and little, independent movies such as “Solitary Man,” which played here at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).

So, it’s little wonder that when asked by reporters at TIFF how he balances making movies and being a father Douglas, 64, who is currently married to Catherine Zeta-Jones with whom he has two young children, said he doesn’t anymore – so much.

“I don’t think you balance,” he said. “For a long time in my life, you led with your career. Making movies is a full-time occupation and you choose to go away from home. So, you’ve got to make choices. In my life, right now, my balance has changed. Since I got married (to Zeta-Jones) and raised a family, I would say my family is first and issues involved with the United Nations, issues like disarmament, come second. And if you’re lucky, you find projects like ‘Solitary Man’ that motivate you to go off to work. I’m not that motivated, or I don’t see that many good projects that make me want to go away and leave my family.”

We note that his marriage to Zeta-Jones is his second. He was previously married to Diandra Douglas, from whom he is divorced. They have a grown son, Cameron, who recently was arrested and charged with possession of methamphetamine with the intent to distribute. You can read about that here.

Douglas has said before that “The family is devastated and very disappointed in Cameron’s recent behavior. Any family who has dealt with substance abuse knows how devastating it can be.” So, no one at the TIFF presser, pressed him on the subject of Cameron. But there’s probably not much more to be said. Cameron is 30.

(reporting and writing by Cameron French)

Tough economic times appear to have hit the Toronto Intertnational Film Festival (TIFF) right where it hurts — in the liver.

At a premiere party for the rock ‘n roll themed vampire flick “Suck” late Friday night, attendees were surprised to to find that organizers did not provide an open bar. Rather, they doled out two drink tickets per person. It’s got to be hard for a vampire to live on only two Bloody Marys?

Now, it’s not completely unheard of to hand out drink tickets at a premiere party, but it is unusual. And you hear about all these glitzy movie parties at TIFF, and then you go and find they’re giving out drink tickets…so much for Hollywood-style conspicuous consumption. 

It’s unclear whether the rock legends who appear in the comedy film — including Iggy Pop and Alice Cooper — received the same treatment. But the film shouldn’t be too hard up for cash. It has been eagerly anticipated by critics here and this week managed to sell its Canadian distibution rights to Alliance films.

What’s that old saying? The couple that plays together, stays together?

Well, when it comes to actors Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, who are married in real life and play Mr. and Mrs. Charles Darwin in the new movie “Creation,” it could very well be the couple that plays together, stays together AND does their makeup together!

On the red carpet at the opening night gala for the Toronto International Film Festival, Connelly was asked about working with her husband on the set of “Creation” and, of course, she lavished praised on Bettany and his performance as the evolutionist whose seminal work, “The Origin of Species,” espoused theories of evolution and natural selection.

Then, Connelly added, “On a silly, superficial level. How many girls can say ‘I put on my makeup on with my husband?’ We did our makeup together.”

And she’s likely very right.

But it does make us wonder: when going out for a gala opening like the one at Toronto, who gets more time in front of the mirror? Judging by the picture, maybe they just share.

It’s one thing to be a movie actress portraying a character in a secretive anti-government group, but it’s a far different to be a person in real life battling a government every day. In movies, guns fire blanks; in real life, they shoot bullets.

So, when actress Rose McGowan told reporters at a Toronto film festival press conference for her new movie ”Fifty Dead Men Walking” that if she had lived through Northern Ireland’s ”Troubles,” she would have joined the Irish Republican Army, she almost immediately drew a protest from the very man upon whose life the film is based.

“I imagine had I grown up in Belfast I would have 100 percent joined the IRA,” said McGowan,  35,  who plays a high-ranking IRA femme fatale in the movie, alongside British actors Jim Sturgess and Ben Kingsley.

“My heart just broke for the cause and I have a lot of respect for the intelligence and the honor that these people carried.”

“Fifty Dead Men Walking,” which debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday, is based on Martin McGartland’s best-selling 1997 memoir of a young Catholic hustler living in Belfast in the late ’80s who was recruited by British intelligence to infiltrate the IRA.

McGartland, who is still in hiding and lives under a false identity on the British mainland, responded with a statement on Thursday slamming McGowan’s off-the-cuff remarks.

“Such comments are deeply offensive and hurtful to victims of IRA terrorism,” he said.

McGowan, whose father is Irish, was born and raised in Italy. Could she really know what it meant to be an IRA member just because she was in a movie? Are statements such as hers made by actors ”deeply offensive and hurtful” to people on both sides of an issue who have suffered in real life? They are interesting questions, and we’d like to know readers’ views.

Before he became King James of the basketball court, he was a boy from the ‘hood who grew up under the media spotlight from the time Sports Illustrated crowned him “The Chosen One”.

The story of LeBron James and the storied state championship team he lead at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s high school is well-documented, but what isn’t as well known is the story of friendship and loyalty among the boys he played with. They happened to be pretty good at basketball, too.

“More than a Game,” a documentary by first-time director Kristopher Belman, that debuted at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, follows James and his teammates Willie McGee, Sian Cotton, Romeo Travis and Dru Joyce III on their journey to the state championship.

Born in Akron, Ohio, the same hometown as James, Belman decided to turn a camera onto a high-school basketball team for a small school project. It later turned out to be more — much more. Never-before-seen footage and candid interviews show how the boys handled growing up, on and off the court, under the guidance of Coach Dru Joyce.

The movie received a glowing reception from audiences at its Saturday world premiere, and James was said to tear up at the screening.

That same day, rain threatened to put a damper on a crowd gathered in the heart of downtown Toronto, waiting for the James, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ No. 1 player, to show up and judge a slam dunk contest. Things appeared to take a turn for the worst as a crew gave up trying to set up an NBA regulation net because they couldn’t get it off the truck. Eventually organizers resorted to the type of basketball net that may be found at the end of a suburban driveway.

But the gray sky and equipment change didn’t seem to dampen spirits. In a huddle before the contest got started, dunkers received instructions like “don’t hang by the elbow on the rim”. If the net broke – and it was easy to see how it could with the force of some of these dunkers – the event would be over.

And it was little wonder to any of those who had seen ”More than a Game” that – just as a Cadillac Escalade drove onto the makeshift court on a closed city street and King James stepped out to judge – the sun started to shine. And the contest was on.

A lot of buzz at the Toronto film festival inevitably is about which movies may compete for Oscars as Hollywood begins its months-long campaign for film honors that often — although not always — bring stars fame and movie studios money.

Taken together with film festivals in Venice and Telluride, Colorado, which annually occur in late August and early September, the Toronto event is a key Oscar campaign launch site. But sometimes the movies suffer a critical backlash if they are too widely hyped. Other times critics jump on a movie’s bandwagon and propel the film forward.

A few titles winning early praise here at Toronto, mostly for their performances include: Mickey Rourke as a washed up professional wrestler being urged to make a comeback in a big match in “The Wrestler”; Anne Hathaway playing a drug abusing woman who checks out of rehab to attend her sister’s wedding in “Rachel Getting Married”; and Greg Kinnear portraying the man who invents the intermittent windshield wiper and must battle automakers over his patent in “Flash of Genius.”

 There is little doubt that singer Alicia Keys will garner a lot of media attention for a supporting part in coming-of-age drama “The “Secret Life of Bees,” as will the film’s star, young Dakota Fanning. But whether critics and Oscar voters adore the overall film seems to be a tossup among the film pundits here at the Toronto festival. Two films that clearly have stood out in the early festivals are “The Wrestler,” directed by Darren Aronofsky, and “Slumdog Millionaire” from director Danny Boyle, telling of young Indian boy who aims to be a millionaire by competing on a TV game show.

At a Toronto news conference, we asked Kinnear how he saw “Flash of Genius” playing out during awards season, and here was part of his answer:  “What I’m most excited about is that the movie’s being talked about.

“You know I think it’s a little provocative in terms of how people register this film and the fact that they recognize it, as (director) Marc (Abraham) said, he took this project out to studios and you tell studios you’re going to make a movie about a guy who invented the intermittent windshield wiper — not a lot of bites…

“It’s an unconventional film and it’s hard to get these kinds of pictures noticed. It really is, especially in a world where 7 or 8 or 12 movies are coming out in a weekend now. So we’re obviously grateful to be here and grateful to anybody who in any way is referencing what you’re talking about right now,” Kinnear said

Not exactly a direct answer, but with awards talk does come attention — at least that is the conventional Hollywood wisdom. But we wonder how much attention moviegoers truly pay to “Oscar buzz”? And what matters most when it comes to picking a movie for the weekend: what critics say in reviews, or what movie marketers put on promotional posters? We — and very likely Oscar — want to know.

(Additional Reporting by Claire Sibonney)