The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has done the correct and expected thing by naming Brokeback Mountain as the year’s Best Picture, and also by awarding Brokeback‘s behind-the-scenes alchmeist Ang Lee as the year’s Best Director. But stoic Heath Ledger (“If you can’t fix, it, ya gotta stand it’) was nudged out by Capote‘s Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Best Actor. (These two are going to be nipping at each other’s heels between now and March 5th.) I’ll get into the Perplexing Mystery of Vera Farmiga in the next item. Hooray for William Hurt, the totally nutso-bonkers crimelord in A History of Violence‘s, winning for Best Supporting Actor award, and four sequential hoorahs to Catherine Keener for winning as Best Suporting Actress for her performances in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Capote, The Ballad of Jack and Rose and The Interpreter. And a big woo-woo-woo! for Capote screenwriter Dan Futterman and The Squid and the Whale‘s creator Noah Baumbach for splitting the Best Screenplay Award.