He was absolutely sincere with that BULLSHIT. That man has lost whatever respect he had from a ton of people. Kevin mind you left the ceremonies right after our award and went to the hospital where his mother passed away in his arms at 11:32 pm. As if Kevin didn't have enough to deal with. He wakes up to this bullshit.

It's been a really weird couple of days. I've been fielding all the calls because Kev has been out. The head of our studio came in to say he blasted Minkler for his assault. I even kicked myself for being congratulatory that night. Minkler said to me when I congratulated him that I was always a classy guy and he appreciated that alot. Integrity is something that means everything to me and this man has absolutely NONE. He stood backstage representing the entire Sound Community in front of the world, only to disgrace us all.*

So there you have it: Not only did Minkler kick a man while he was down, he did it while he was at his mother's deathbed. It might be time for the crack Dreamgirls PR team to start drafting a statement about how an unfortunate epsiode of post-victory exhaustion made their sound mixer say a bunch of things he didn't really mean.

UPDATE: Minkler's apology has arrived, where he claims misunderstood sarcasm instead of the expected exhaustian/dehydration excuse.

[*The last line of the statement's been altered over at InContention, so we've changed it to reflect what it says now.]

• Greg P. Russell Responds to Michael Minkler's Comments [InContention.com]
• Previously: Oscar FeudWatch: Sound Mixer Smackdown! [Defamer]

Could a little rivalry have been revealed in the sound mixing world? Things turned weird when the winners in that category — Willie Burton, Bob Beemer and Michael Minkler for "Dreamgirls" — were onstage in the press room. A question was thrown to the trio about what advice they had for Kevin O'Connell, a nominee for "Apocalypto" who now has been nominated 19 times without a win. While Burton and Beemer had conciliatory things to say — "Hang in there, Kevin, you'll get your chance," Burton said — Minkler's words were the opposite. "I think Kevin should go away with 19 nominations," he said without cracking a smile. "We work really hard, and if we stumble upon an award, we are so grateful. I have to wonder ... Kevin is an OK mixer, but he should take up another line of work." He exited the stage leaving people wondering whether he was serious.

And over at E!'s backstage blog, another version of the incident:

9:46 p.m.: A reporter asks the Sound Mixing winners for Dreamgirls about Kevin O'Connell, one of the Sound Mixing losers for Apocalypto—and one of Oscars all-time losers, now having been vanquished 19 times. "I just wonder what Kevin's trying to do out there by trying to get an award by using sympathy," an absolutely straight-faced Oscar-holding Michael Minkler says. "And Kevin's an okay mixer, but enough's enough about Kevin."

9:47 p.m.: What?!

9:48 p.m.: "I think he should just take up another line of work," the Oscar-gloating Minkler adds.

9:49 p.m.: Huh?!

9:50 p.m.: Minkler and his team are gone—no chance for a follow-up question.

9:50 p.m.: I talk to the reporter who asked the question, checking to see if he heard what I heard. "He couldn't have been serious," the reporter says. "But that's what he said."

Indeed, we need to recognize the deflating possibility that this was all just some sort of in-joke between peers. But in the interest of generating even the tiniest drop of intrigue from the tragically unlubricated Academy circle-jerk that chafed America's collective genitals for three hours and forty-seven minutes on Sunday night, we'll go right on believing that the cutthroat world of sound mixing is about to be rocked by a series of retaliatory murders over this public humiliation, each of which will be followed by shocking master recordings released to the media featuring nothing but the terrifying, grisly sounds of an unlucky engineer's brain being splattered against the glass of a mixing booth.

• Backstage: Some 'Departed' attitude [THR]
• Backstage Blog [E! Online]