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If going back and reviewing the press room video of Dreamgirls' Best Sound Mixing Oscar sore-winner Michael Minkler's shocking backstage sneak attack on record-setting, 19-time also-ran Kevin O'Connell fails to convince you that the whole thing wasn't actually some kind of straight-faced joke between below-the-line frenemies (as we were secretly hoping it was, because that was some cold shit), the angry and frustrated response that O'Connell's Apocalypto partner Greg P. Russell gave to InContention.com should remove all doubts about Minkler's intentions when he said that his colleague was an "OK mixer" who should "take up another line of work." Prepare for things to get even uglier:

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.]