Attention all Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, Slytherins, Marauders, Death Eaters, Ministry officials, house elves, goblin bankers, Quidditch teams, people in pointed hats, and even the well-informed muggle: Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling is coming to Toronto.

The Globe is reporting that Rowling will make her only Canadian visit in support of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (a novel in dire, dire need of publicity) on October 23rd at the Wintergarden Theatre. Raincoast Books, who publish the Canadian editions of the Harry Potter series, is hosting the event.

To avoid what would almost certainly be a ticket-buying riot, there will be no tickets for sale; seats for the all-ages event will only be available through random draws and via libraries and school boards. Ten double-passes will be awarded daily starting today and running through September 28 on the Raincoast web site, at raincoast.com/harrypotter.

You're allowed to enter once a day until the end of the contest, so it's time for the Potter-faithful to start showing how much damage an internet-based fan culture can do to a web server when they really, really want something.

On Saturday afternoon, the Toronto International Film Festival handed out its awards, bestowing honours on the usual perplexing array of films from around the world that otherwise spent their time at the festival this year well below the public's radar.

The public's radar, on the other hand, was front-and-centre for the Cadillac People's Choice Award, the founding father of all those godforsaken "Be an original" ads that preceded the feature films this year ("Death Shark!" "Dance Fight!"). First place in the popularity contest goes to David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises, with a runner-up prize to Jason Reitman's brilliant Juno.

blogTO's film crew was all over the fest this year with their coverage. Read on to find out what we picked as the best of the festival.

Forget parties, forget closing night galas; the Toronto International Film Festival truly comes to its rousing close at the Ryerson Theatre with the final Midnight Madness screening. Songs were sung, beach balls were bounced, we "arrrrrrh"ed our way through the anti-piracy card for the very last time, and rum was occasionally imbibed at the Rye-high tonight, before Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury's sick pregno-horror gore-fest À l'intérieur hit us square in the eyeballs.

The filmmakers are French, and friends of last year's closing filmmaker, Kim Chapiron (who brought us Sheitan). There's no two ways about it: if their horror movies are to be believed, the French are a deeply disturbed people.

Oddly enough, DAINIPPONJIN is probably the best overall film screened at Midnight Madness this year - but that doesn't make it the best Midnight Madness film. Every year, the programme will screen a movie that is in fact above its station (last year it was Princess). Midnight films live and die on over-the-top antics and their geek-cool cred, but rarely can they be mistaken for "real" movies.

With DAINIPPONJIN, I'm not so sure. The flick is a subtle and sharp-minded comedy along the lines of Beat Takeshi's work (Takeshi is in the main body of the festival this year with Glory to the Filmmaker). DAINIPPONJIN is hilarious, a story of a low-key shlubb whose "job" is to serve Japan as a local superhero. Daisato (Hitoshi Matsumoto, who also directed) is having a documentary made about him, in which he describes his seemingly menial existence, while occasionally making detours to power plants to be "powered up" into a gigantic, Hulk-style monster-slayer in purple underwear.

It's a zesty piece of filmmaking, I'm just not sure it's right for this programme.

Colin Geddes, Midnight Madness programmer extraordinaire, differs from his TIFF programming committee brethren in one significant way. For the rest of them, as the week goes on, they start looking worse and worse; Piers Handling looked like he'd been hit by a truck when he was presenting a film at the Elgin last night, and Noah Cowan's programming assistant has been getting more face time in front of the movies than her boss. Colin, on the other hand, just looks like he's having more and more fun. Tonight, presenting Wilson Yip's martial arts action pic Flash Point at the Ryerson, Geddes looked like exactly what he was: a martial arts freak in hog heaven.

Yip was in attendance before the screaming, slathering crowd; he and Geddes had also received an e-mail from the movie's star and action choreographer, Donnie Yen, just prior to showtime, which they read to the audience before letting the mayhem unfold onscreen. Yen promised a new breed of MMA (mixed martial arts) action, and in this regard, he did not disappoint.

"This is sukiyaki, not a dang lollipop!" - Quentin Tarantino in SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO

I hate Takashi Miike. Hate, hate, hate. I've walked out of more of his films than I've stayed in. And yet, every time Colin Geddes programs one of his films for Midnight Madness, my ears perk up - each successive one sounds even more fun than the one before.

This time, it's SUKIYAKI WESTERN DJANGO (capitalized to grab your attention, like most of the movie) - and for the first time, I don't hate Takeshi Miike.

Miike's long association with Midnight Madness packed the house at the Ryerson tonight; tickets for DJANGO sold better than the Argento or Romero offerings and were the fastest sellout for MM this year. Actors from the film were in attendance, and Miike, who was unable to hop over to Toronto for the screening, taped a welcome for the crowd and wished everyone well. He even gave us his e-mail address so we could comment on the film (miike@olm.co.jp).