Matthew McConaughey was named Best Male Lead for his performance as an HIV sufferer in Dallas Buyers Club at the Spirit Awards on Mar. 1 in Santa Monica.
In the Someone to Watch category, director Shaka King was recognized for his film, Newlyweeds.
A movie about taking San Pedro cactus received several nominations, but lost. Gaby Hoffman was up for Best Female Lead for Crystal Fairy, plus the film earned a John Cassavetes Award nom (for Best Feature Made for Less than $500,000). Crystal Fairy also stars Michael Cera, who plays Jamie, an American traveling in Chile on a mission to sample the hallucinatory cactus. He meets Crystal at a party and she joins him and three Chilean brothers on their psychedelic journey.
Patton Oswalt did a couple of pot jokes in his monologue: "Matthew McConaughey packed a lifetime master class of acting into 12 months. It's stunning. Dallas Biuyers Club, Mud, Wolf of Wall Street, True Detective. Those are just the names of the strains of pot that he smoked. And Wolf of Wall Street - that is a powerful indica. Do not smoke that at night or you'll be up going..." (Note: Oswalt seemed to confuse indica with sativa.)
In a presentation with Reese Witherspoon, McConaughey explained that he stole his famous catch-phrase from Dazed and Confused, "All right, all right, all right," from Jim Morrison. Upon winning his award, McConaughey said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you... and, all right, all right, all right!" Jared Leto also won for Supporting Actor in Dallas Buyers Club.
Nebraska screenwriter, Bob Nelson, who won for Best First Screenplay, quipped that the script he originally wrote was called "California" and "was about a couple of teenaged boys trying to score some weed."
The night's big winner was 12 Years a Slave - for Best Feature and several more. Brad Pitt, one of the film's producers and supporting actors, attended the show with Angelina Jolie. Check out all the winners here.
