Kevin Smith gets punny with movie critic Joel Siegel

Posted Thursday, July 20, 2006 at 3:02 PM Central

by John Couture

Kevin Smith has a new movie opening this weekend (Clerks II, a decade later follow-up to his breakout hit Clerks) and like all of his previous films, he's managed to upset someone. This time, it's neither the Catholic League or GLAAD, but Good Morning America movie critic Joel Siegel.

It seems that the mustachioed Siegel played the diva card during his free press screening for the flick and walked out making sure that the entire audience knew he was leaving by leaving behind an impromptu review. "Time to go. First time I’ve walked out in 30 [expletive deleted] years!"

Smith struck back in typical Kevin Smith fashion with an online rebuttal (here), but he didn't question the critic's decision to walk out rather the way in which he did so. And then, Kevin took to the airwaves while being interviewed on the Opie & Anthony show. The show's hosts called up Siegel, best known for his punny one-liner reviews of movies such as "Wheelie Good Time for Cars" and "Jamie Foxx Delivers Ray of Sunshine," and the two adversaries squared-off, sort of (here).

Clerks II has been getting generally favorable reviews from critics and received an 8 minute standing ovation when it debuted at Cannes earlier this year. As for the bad reaction/review from Siegel, Smith considers it a "badge of honor."

Clerks II opens up this Friday. In light of the new dustup, our crack graphic artists came up with an updated poster that would surely score some points with Kevin's core audience (above).