Cheers to the Brokeback Mountain team — director Ang Lee, producer James Schamus and Focus Features — for having taken the Golden Lion (i.e., the best feature prize) at the just-wrapped Venice Film Festival. A BBC report claims that George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck “had been the hot favourite among film critics to take the Golden Lion,” but at least David Straitharn — Good Night‘s Edward R. Murrow — took the Best Actor prize, and Good Night‘s screenplay, by Clooney and Grant Heslov, was named best also. And…wow, this is a head-turner…director Abel Ferrara won the Jury Grand Prix for Mary, which stars Juliette Binoche as an actress haunted by the figure of Mary Magdalene after playing her in a film. (If the Best Actor prize had been my call, I would have said that as good and precise as Straitharn is, Heath Ledger’s performance in Brokeback Mountain is deeper and more fully realized.)