At the 2007 Academy Awards, sound mixer Michael Minkler made rude and hurtful comments about his colleague Kevin O’Connell who left the awards early to be by his dying mother’s side. We think that was a really low class, dirty move and we lost respect for Michael Minkler as a result.
Further discussion about Michael Minkler’s hateful comments and his subsequent attempts to censor any online discussions about them can be read at the following links:
O’Connell was with dying mom while being bashed at Oscars
Greg P. Russell Responds to Michael Minkler’s Comments
Sore Winner: A big case of foot in mouth for Michael Minkler
Catfights with the sound people!
Oscar FeudWatch: Sound Mixer Smackdown!
Oscar Sound Mixer Smackdown II: Team ‘Apocalypto’ Responds
The Oscar Sound Mixing Smackdown: Now With More Drama
Kevin O’Connell: Still an Oscar Bridesmaid?
19 time loser mocked after leaving Oscars to be with dying mother
Harsh sounds afoot at the Oscars …
Win an Oscar for Sound Mixing…and behave like a pompous ass
Michael Minkler is an asshole and a hack
Go straight to hell Michael Minkler! (Sound Oscar winner)
(this URL was taken down after legal threats and bullying by Michael Minkler. See Michael Minkler gets 7-year old message board post deleted)
Three time Academy Award winner Michael Minkler is evil
Threatened with legal action over a 2007 post
In the matter of Michael Minkler
Oscars wall of shame 
As the person who was bullied, I’d like to thank you for this blog. There are several links here I hadn’t even seen before.
Thank you for your comments Equipoise. Sorry that he bullied you. Hopefully there is some comfort to be found in the knowledge that his heavy handed attempt to silence your voice only served to inspire many others to speak out against his unacceptable behavior. Not only at the Oscars but also toward you.
Looks like his attorney has managed to get at least one message board to expunge one of the above threads. Deeply disappointing. http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=726709
Thanks again for this oscarlover! Here’s a link to the thread about the takedown:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=726757
This is a link to another thread I started when I received the threats. I copied Minkler’s threats (and his wife’s bribe) in the post.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=721981
The thing that is so astonishing about Minkler being a particularly unpleasant and graceless winner is the fact that, in his category, the only part that counts is being nominated. The Oscar nominees are selected by the votes of other sound engineers via a process called the “bake off” – a selected scene or group of scenes from each film is played, in a theater, for the pros. So any nominee is an example of the best work of the year. But the general membership of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is not composed of sound engineers. The vast majority are actors, who really have no idea what makes a good sound mix. So they vote for the films they like, and the winner is usually the film that won a bunch of other awards. Also, Minkler is only one member of a team; the sound mix on a Hollywood feature is so complicated that some sound boards used for feature film mixing have more than 100 faders, so the final mix may involve a team effort by three people.
Yes, that’s what happened, the Oscar winners were Willie Burton, Bob Beemer and Michael Minkler.
Thank you for continually adding new links and for explaining that the Straight Dope thread was taken down.
Here’s another link I just found to a blog that was written in 2007 about Michael Minkler’s Oscar comments:
http://www.hellifiknowblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/catfights-with-sound-people.html?m=1