George Clooney at 65th Venice film festival opening ceremony and screening of "Burn after reading"

VENICE, Italy (AP) -- The Coen brothers wrote their dark comedy, "Burn After Reading," with stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand in mind. Not necessarily a compliment.
The Venice Film Festival opened Wednesday with the gala premiere of the movie, a tale about idiots - and what happens when their worlds collide. "Burn After Reading" is playing out of competition for the Golden Lion, which will be awarded on the festival's closing night Sept. 6.
Pitt picked up an award at the opening ceremony - last year's best-acting prize for "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" that he never picked up.
In "Burn After Reading," Pitt and McDormand are a pair of hapless gym employees who get in way over their heads when the memoirs of a failed CIA analyst (John Malkovich) fall into their hands and they try to peddle them as classified intelligence secrets. Clooney plays a hypochondriac philanderer having an affair with the CIA analyst's disappointed wife, played by Tilda Swinton.