It wasn’t that long ago that most of the winners in major award shows like the Academy Awards would thank God before anyone else. That has faded in recent years.
So it is not surprising that many major media outlets noted that when Matthew McConaughey won Best Actor for his role in “Dallas Buyers Club” Sunday night that they pointed out his strong thank you to God.
“First off I want to thank God, because that’s who I look up to. He’s graced my life with opportunities that I know are not of my hand or any other human hand,” McConaughey said in his speech. “He has shown me that it’s a scientific fact that gratitude reciprocates. In the words of the late Charlie Laughton, who said, ‘When you got God you got a friend and that friend is you.'”
He went on to thank his family with special thanks to his mother and his late father.
Critics immediately pounced on the actor for his speech, slamming his credit to God.
“Just stop the stupid God talk,” wrote one critic quoted by Fox News. “I thought we could get through the Oscars without someone thanking God but no he had to ruin it….”
Heroin has ended the life of an Oscar winning actor.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, was found dead in a New York apartment Sunday morning. NYPD officials said that Hoffman’s body was found with a needle still sticking in his arm.
A police source told Fox News that they are investigating to see if Hoffman was the victim of a series of spiked heroin that has been killing addicts throughout the northeast. Police officials had issued warnings last week of the heroin that was laced with the powerful painkiller fentanyl.
The Maryland state medical examiner said Thursday that the tainted heroin could cause a user to lose consciousness in less than 20 seconds.
Hoffman had a history of substance abuse and had attended rehab multiple times.
Police say they found the body after checking on him when he failed to pick up his three children for visitation.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has taken away an Oscar nomination from an independent Christian film following outrage from Oscar watchers and industry members.
The Academy claims that a former member of the board of Governors who sits on the Academy’s music branch’s executive committee violated rules against lobbying by e-mailing members of the music branch about the song during the nomination period.
The film had made a small run in Los Angeles to allow it to qualify for Oscar consideration before going into wider release next year. The tactic is very common for smaller films and was used this year for Hayao Miyazaki’s “The Wind Rises” to get a nomination for Best Animated Feature.
The nomination was first attacked by critics who tried to disqualify the song claiming the movie did not purchase advertisements for the run of the movie in Los Angeles. The Academy ruled in that case the show times published in the newspapers of the area qualified as meeting the advertising requirement.
The Academy has not previously taken action against someone sending an e-mail to members asking them to nominate a song for Oscar consideration.
