The Envelope, Eh?

By RICHARD CORLISS

Showcasing 261 features, putting 300,000 fannies in the seats--all in a whirlwind 10 days--the Toronto International Film Festival, which runs through Sept. 16, boasts numbers even Hollywood can appreciate. Here's another: in each of the six major categories at this year's Academy Awards, at least three of the five nominees had played at TIFF, including the big winners, Crash and Brokeback Mountain. That's why the current bash looks like an Oscar photo op. Brad and Reese, Tom Hanks and Will Ferrell, Sean Penn and Russell Crowe are clogging the red carpet, hoping that September in Canada is a harbinger of February in California. Warning to the stars: You may be upstaged by the fake-umentary Death of a President, which imagines George Bush's assassination, or have your party crashed by Sacha Baron Cohen's crazed Kazakh alter ego, Borat.