Go Canada! It's Toronto Film Fest time

Opening Night of the Toronto International Film Festival has long involved a faceoff: between the programmers' obligation to show something Canadian and the audience's need to, say, go have dinner.

But this year, the revamped and reinvented festival - the largest in North America (with 365 films), and one of the three most influential in the world - has gotten even more in touch with its inner Canadian-ness: "Score! A Hockey Musical" ("he shoots ... he sings!") will kick things off Thursday night in a city that will be, for the next 10 days, the center of the movie universe.

While Canadian cinema holds its own during the fest, Hollywood makes the most of the concentration of press and industry that jams itself in among the Toronto "civilians." What they'll all see encompasses the world, both geographically and aesthetically. American thrillers ("John Carpenter's The Ward"); Danish documentaries ("Erotic Man" by Jorgen Leth); indie dramas ("White Irish Drinkers" by John Gray, with Peter Riegert and Karen Allen); semi-indie comedies ("It's Kind of a Funny Story" from Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, with Zach Galifianakis); Irish exposés ("The Pipe"); and crime dramas starring Keanu Reeves ("Henry's Crime") and Edward Norton and Robert De Niro ("Stone"). And Ben Stiller (the comedy "Submarine," which he executive-produced).

TIFF marks the beginning of the heavy-duty movie season that culminates in the Oscars: Awards hopefuls are premiered, the best international films get their Western Hemispherical debuts. And while the festival always offers its share of new talent and films to be discovered, the established geniuses of cinema - Mike Leigh ("Another Year"), Darren Aronofsky ("Black Swan"), Werner Herzog ("Cave of Forgotten Dreams") and even Jean-Luc Godard ("Film Socialism") - provide a kind of insurance by which Toronto manages to stay on top. Goal!