Burning question No. 1 at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which kicks off Thursday: Will exes Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston cross paths?

They arrive on different days, but in the movie biz, anything is possible. Pitt is due in Canada, sans Angelina Jolie, to hype Burn After Reading, his new Coen Brothers comedy with George Clooney. Aniston, meanwhile, will be talking up Management, a romantic comedy in which she’s wooed by Steve Zahn and Woody Harrelson.

But those are just two of the 249 feature films set to screen and a few of the stars - cue Dakota Fanning, Ricky Gervais and Charlize Theron - set to shine over the 10-day festival, which has come to serve Hollywood as the annual unofficial launch of the Oscar race.

• After scoring big at last year’s festival with Juno, Superbad’s Michael Cera returns with Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. He plays a music-obsessed youth who finds love when he least expects it during a visit to New York City. The movie opens Oct. 3.

• In Rachel Getting Married, Anne Hathaway stars as a woman who, following a stint in rehab, returns to her idyllic Connecticut hometown for the wedding of her older sister Rachel. Jonathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs) directed the comedic family drama, which opens in limited markets Oct. 3.

• Keira Knightley again dons sumptuous period petticoats and gowns for her title role in The Duchess, a biopic about Georgiana Spencer, a scandalous 18th century English aristocrat. Her costars include Ralph Fiennes and Charlotte Rampling. It opens Sept. 19.

• Irishman Colin Farrell works on his New Yawk accent in Pride and Glory, a crime drama in which he and Edward Norton star as brothers who are NYPD cops. Family bonds are tested as they uncover something rotten in the Big Apple. The film, which was scheduled to open earlier this year, is now set for release Oct. 24.

• Wedding Crashers star Rachel McAdams teams up with Tim Robbins and Michael Pe%26#241;a in The Lucky Ones, a drama about three soldiers returning home to the U.S. after serving in Iraq. The film, due to open Sept. 26, has been sitting on the shelf for months after Hollywood became hesitant following the box office failure of several war-themed movies - Rendition, Lions for Lambs, Stop-Loss - in late 2007 and early 2008.

• Rising British heartthrob Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe and 21) portrays a young Irishman in Belfast in the 1980s who finds himself unintentionally caught between the British Army and the IRA in Fifty Dead Men Walking. Ben Kingsley and Rose McGowan costar. The film does not yet have a U.S. release date.

• Shouldn’t she be training? Kim Kardashian,

lunching with sisters Khloe and Kourtney at Toast in Los Angeles after shooting their reality show Keeping Up with the Kardashians. The new Dancing with the Stars cast member capped

off her meal with a trip to trendy boutique Intermix, sisters in tow.

• He may be an Academy Award-nominated actor, but Ryan Gosling continues to moonlight as a deejay: The actor hit the turntables at L.A.’s Green Door, spinning during the hip lounge’s weekly jazz night. The actor, who

arrived sans Rachel McAdams, chatted with fans, bopped

his head to the music and, later, checked out the live jazz. After the

band finished its set, Gosling resumed deejaying, sipping on bottled water

and playing songs by Michael Jackson and indie artist M.I.A.

• Still just friends? Kirsten Dunst, checking out

folk-rocker Meiko in concert at L.A.

club the Roxy with Drew Barrymore’s ex Justin Long. The duo

must be big fans of the artist because they took in a second show

together at Saint Rocke in Hermosa Beach, Calif., the following night. The

friends were also joined by Long’s brother, Christian, at one of the gigs.

• Naomi Watts, eating breakfast with Liev Schreiber in East Hampton, N.Y. During their meal, the happy couple chatted with an older, female

diner, and “Liev had his arm around %26#91;Naomi%26#93; the whole time,” an onlooker tells us.

• Kevin Costner, watching in awe as Bob Dylan performed at the Aspen Jazz Festival in Colorado. “He was looking

awesome,” an observer said of the Oscar winner, who watched

the concert from the VIP lounge next to the stage.

• By REAGAN ALEXANDER, JENNIFER GARCIA, MARISA LAUDADIO, MARY

MARGARET and ABBY STERN

Wednesday’s Caught in the Act >

• Salma Hayek, singing “Happy Birthday” in Spanish

to friend Daya Fernandez - who founded the popular L.A. game

Hollywood Domino - during her birthday bash at The Stork in Los

Angeles. When she wasn’t with the guest of honor, Hayek mingled with

girlfriends in the lounge’s bell tower. Meanwhile, Orlando Bloom stuck close to girlfriend Miranda Kerr - but still

added his voice to the “Happy Birthday” chorus. Among the other celebrity

revelers: Leonardo DiCaprio.

• Cameron Diaz, chatting it up with pal Robin Antin on the patio of West Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont. The

actress, who sat at the table just vacated by Radiohead singer

Thom Yorke, ordered the shrimp and corn chowder, which she enjoyed

with some bits of bread that she carefully buttered. She also enjoyed

chatting with her friend, and the ladies seemed to relish their time

together, an onlooker says of the smiling, laughing pair.

• Back from Toronto (where he got cozy with ex Rachel McAdams), a solo Ryan Gosling ordered tacos for lunch

at Hugo’s Tacos in Studio City, Calif.

• Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley,

sharing a romantic sushi dinner at Koi in Los Angeles. After their meal, the

couple left hand-in-hand, a source says.

• Debra Messing, turning the big 4-0 with an intimate party

at high-end Los Angeles lingerie store Kiki De Montparnasse. Messing sported

a metallic gold minidress to her bash - and arrived before her guests

to put the finishing touches on various elements of the party. Partygoers

(including Cheri Oteri) came with gifts for the actress, and dined

on food catered by Ashton Kutcher’s restaurant, Dolce.

“Everyone was shopping around,” a guest tells us of the scene.

• Heroes costars Zachary Quinto and Dania Ramirez, strolling through the Sunset Junction fair in L.A.’s Silver Lake

neighborhood with a bunch of pals. Quinto sported a gray tank, which showed

off his muscular arms, while Ramirez wore a black sundress. The pals

checked out the food - and the people! They kept running into friends

and fans, acting friendly and cheery with everybody that crossed their path.

• Entourage star Kevin Connolly, hitting up Dune

Nightclub in Southampton, N.Y., twice in one weekend!

• By JENNIFER GARCIA, SARA HAMMEL and MARY MARGARET

Celebrity Hot Spots.

Monday’s Caught in the Act >

For a couple who broke up more than a year ago, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are spending an awful lot of time together.

The Canadian-born pair went to dinner Monday with a couple of friends in Toronto at Grace restaurant. Gosling, 27, and McAdams, 31, began dating shortly after wrapping the romantic 2004 film The Notebook. They split in mid-2007.

While reps are staying tight-lipped on the state of Gosling and McAdams’s relationship, the couple reportedly held hands during the meal, according to a Canadian gossip Web site.

“They talked when he was away from the deejay stand,” says a friend. “They really looked like good pals. He seemed happy to see her.”

Ryan Gosling made his deejay debut Tuesday night at Green Door lounge in Hollywood, with a surprising guest in the crowd - his ex-girlfriend Rachel McAdams.

Arriving at 9 p.m., the actor settled into what is said to be a weekly gig at the lounge’s Tuesday jazz night. McAdams arrived later “supporting Ryan,” says a Gosling pal.

“They talked when he was away from the deejay stand,” says the friend. “They really looked like good pals. He seemed happy to see her.”

For Gosling, deejaying is “a pretty new thing for him,” says the friend. “He’s been messing around. He’s really into music, and he’s a fan of the night - and here he is.”

Along with McAdams other celebs on hand were Catherine Keener, Shane West and hockey ace Sean Avery, who chatted up an enamored Keener.

Once the live jazz band took the stage, Gosling mingled with friends and hung out on the patio.

Ryan Gosling says his Notebook costar Rachel McAdams was “one of the great loves of my life” - but when the couple split several months ago, he ended up consoling fans.

“Women are mad at me,” Gosling, 26, tells GQ magazine in its November issue. “A girl came up to me on the street and she almost smacked me. Like, ‘How could you? How could you let a girl like that go?’”

Gosling, who has been mum about the split up until now, continues, “I feel like I want to give people hugs, they seem so sad. Rachel and I should be the ones getting hugs! Instead, we’re consoling everybody else.”

The actor and McAdams, 31, began dating shortly after wrapping the romantic film, which won them an MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss, but he says their relationship was not like the characters they portrayed.

“God bless The Notebook,” Gosling says. “It introduced me to one of the great loves of my life. But people do Rachel and me a disservice by assuming we were anything like the people in that movie. Rachel and my love story is a hell of a lot more romantic than that.”

Of their actual breakup, he will only say, “The only thing I remember is we both went down swingin’ and we called it a draw.”

Gosling, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar for his 2006 film Half Nelson, currently stars in the quirky comedy, Lars and the Real Girl.

First Rachel McAdams told Elle that her boyfriend influenced her film choices - and now Ryan Gosling has returned the compliment.

“She’s kind. She doesn’t need any help from me. She’s inspired me to do so much as well,” Gosling, 26, said Sunday when asked about McAdams’s comments at a junket for his new thriller Fracture.

McAdams, 30, told the magazine’s April issue that her beau - and costar in 2004’s The Notebook - “never does the same thing twice. He’s very brave.”

But Gosling, a Best Actor Oscar nominee for Half Nelson, says McAdams has good judgment in her own right: “She’s the most discerning person I’ve ever met. She’ll read a script 100 times. She’s relentless.”

And she’s not bad looking, either: Asked to comment on McAdams’s cover shot for the magazine, Gosling was momentarily tongue-tied.

“Oh … yeah …” he said. “She looks stunning! Absolutely - yeah!”

Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling played lovers in 2004’s The Notebook, but didn’t begin their off-screen romance until “quite a while after the movie,” she says.

And even though McAdams wasn’t with Gosling, 26, on Oscar night - she was working, so the Best Actor nominee for Half Nelson brought his sister and mother - she tells Elle magazine in its April issue, “He did such an amazing job” in the movie.

The actress, 30, says she admires her boyfriend of two years for his work ethic.

“He never does the same thing twice. He’s very brave. I don’t think he sees the point unless he can find out what he’s made of every time,” she says. “He just doesn’t back off. He goes into everything from that place.”

Clearly, Gosling’s dedication has rubbed off on McAdams. “I’m not going to make movies just to make movies,” she says. According to Elle, she turned down parts in Mission: Impossible III and Casino Royale, as well roles that went to Anne Hathaway in both The Devil Wears Prada and the upcoming Get Smart.

“I have to be passionate about it,” the Wedding Crashers star says of taking a role. “And at the same time, I can get very distracted when I’m working, and I like to get back to my life a lot.”

And what about the ubiquitous claim that she’s “the next Julia Roberts”? McAdams says modestly, “There’s always that need to turn everything into something you can recognize.”

Age: 28
Hometown: St. Thomas, Ontario
Current gig: Playing Owen Wilson’s love interest in the comedy Wedding Crashers

She’s never been an uninvited guest
Although she’s starring in a movie about two lotharios (Wilson and Vince Vaughn) who sneak into weddings to pick up women, McAdams has never crashed a wedding. “We thought about it when we were shooting,” she tells PEOPLE. “We were out in Maryland staying at this beautiful hotel and there was a wedding on the grounds. We were kind of jealous and we thought, ‘You know, we could say it was research.’ But we chickened out.”

So what about her own wedding dreams? The actress, who doesn’t discuss her dating life, will probably forgo the Vera Wang gown and lavish reception. “I would rather keep it quiet and cheap,” she says. “I’d rather spend the money on the honeymoon.”

She was almost a star on ice
McAdams first laced up her skates when she was 4, and the years she spent as a competitive figure skater have worked in her favor as an actress. “Doing a sport totally helps you,” she said recently. “It’s great for your work ethic, and I love doing physical work as an actor because I’ve really become in tune with my body.”

Acting was also an early passion. “I wanted to get into it as a little kid and my parents were like, ‘Maybe later,’” she says. “A theater company came to town and I begged my mom to let me do it and then I started there.” After high school, she enrolled in the theater program at Toronto’s York University, and acting gigs, including a role in the 2002 comedy The Hot Chick, followed soon after graduation.

She’s the queen of the double bill
Her real breakthrough was last year’s one-two punch of the teen comedy Mean Girls and the romantic tearjerker The Notebook. “(Those movies) were so different, and I got to show some range,” she says. “It’s the combination that helps me to be considered for all different kinds of movies.”

This summer, she’s again pulling double duty: After Wedding Crashers, she’ll star in the Wes Craven-directed thriller Red Eye, due Aug. 19. The movie, in which she plays an airplane passenger abducted by Batman Begins’s Cillian Murphy, was particularly claustrophobic to shoot. “When I first got on there I was like, ‘I’m going to go insane. I’m going to go insane,’ ” she says. “(But) after a month I was like sitting on the plane, buckling up, getting ready to get terrorized and it was all in a day’s work.”

She likes to escape the spotlight
Even though she took home the MTV Movie Award for breakthrough female in June, McAdams has no desire to live in the limelight like her Mean Girls costar, Lindsay Lohan. To stay grounded, she’s avoided moving to L.A. “Toronto is home and it suits me,” says McAdams, who’s still tight with parents Lance and Sandy and siblings Kayleen and Daniel. “It’s good to step away from the business when I’m not working and ride my bike and garden. It just keeps me centered.”