As Close as it gets

REEL NE WS:In recent years, the Toronto Film Festival's people's choice award has had a good record of picking the coming year's best picture at the Oscars.

The King's Speechand Slumdog Millionairetriumphed in both competitions. Unless something very odd happens, the two prizes will, however, go in different directions this season.

The good people at the Canadian event handed their award to Nadine Labaki's Where Do We Go Now?A serious comedy set in Lebanon, the film had received consistently excellent reviews, but may be a bit, well, foreign for the Oscar voters.

Elsewhere, Alfred Nobbs, starring Glenn Close as a cross-dressing woman in Victorian Ireland, picked up a slew of excellent notices.