Kevin Smith and Joel Siegel Ongoing Beef

The week before Clerks II was released, Joel Siegel, professional movie critic, walked out on a screening of the movie, causing a strange disruption as he left, calling other people to follow him out and saying that the movie was garbage and such. He claimed that it's the first movie he's ever walked out on and claims it was "so offensive that he could not handle seeing the rest".

Clerks II does contain a fairly provocative donkey show near the end of the movie. However, it was only the mention of the donkey show that drove Siegel from the the theater, at which point he began his tirade and exited loudly.

Needless to say, it got under Kevin Smith's skin a little bit.

He's been on a complete rampage ever since, calling Siegel out on every possible outlet he can, including his own blog. One of the best, it seems, takes place on the Opie and Anthony show, where Kevin Smith actually confronts Siegel on-air.

Craig's MovieBlog lists several of those outlets.

Now, Joel Siegel has the right to do whatever in the hell he wants to do, but Kevin Smith certainly has a point. He's a critic, paid to go see movies. All he has to do is sit through it and bash it in the paper or on the internet the next day. That's all. It's not his job to decide the movie's objective value. He can only give his opinion, and, after thirty years of doing it, he should know better than to disrupt the movie for others.

It's only something I would do.

The Beef So Far