Okay, the Joel Siegel/Kevin Smith/'Clerks II' thing

As one or two of you may have heard, movie reviewer Joel Siegel caused a scene at a "Clerks II" screening recently when he walked out midway, loudly announcing his intention to do so. Smith, rightly taking this as a golden opportunity to promote his rebel persona, has been posting about it on his blog and doing a radio talk show appearance or two about it.

In Scanners, Jim Emerson links to Smith's blog entry of the subject, and writes:

(WARNING: If you follow the link to Smith's blog above, be prepared to scroll down through various merchandising offers before getting to the posting itself; and, of course, you should expect lots of profanity and comments about donkey shows and mustaches and ejaculate -- that incorrigible Smith je ne sais quois!)

He then offers his

Full disclosure: I once liked a Kevin Smith movie ("Dogma"), and I haven't seen "Mallrats" or "Jersey Girl." Others, however (especially "Clerks"), have been painful experiences for me. I feel like an accused Communist writing this, but it is my full confession. Indeed, when an aspiring indie filmmaker (who has since had considerable success) once asked me for some directing advice, I told her to watch Smith's films to see exactly how not to shoot a movie, especially a comedy. She recently wrote to say she had heeded this advice, and to thank me for it. She is more than welcome. You can learn a lot from watching bad movies, and Smith's are every bit as hacky as Michael Bay's. The only difference is that the budgets are generally a bit smaller.

I've liked more of Smith's movies than Emerson has, and I've seen them all. I wrote about them at length in my review of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which is one of the ones I liked. But as you can see in that review, I bought everything Smith was saying at the time about how this was his "hail and farewell" to those characters, and now he was going to try to become a more mature filmmaker.

Well, funny story. "Jersey Girl," his first attempt at such a film, came out and bombed the way it deserved to bomb, it was jaw-droppingly bad. Next thing you know, Smith discovers that why yes! He does have more to say about his Abbott and Costello team after all!

To which I said fine, but let's not pretend he has any more credit with the artistic bank, hmm? To coin a phrase, A Whore Like All The Rest.

(According to some reports, Smith did "Clerks II" not just because he's looking to suck the last drops from his fan base, but as a reward to Jason Mewes for getting sober. This may make him a good friend, but it doesn't make him a good artist.)

(On a matter completely unrelated to writers trying to suck the last drops from their fanbase, it was announced recently that Joss Whedon would write a "Buffy" sequel comic book series. And the creativity continues.)

So, the news that Smith was returning to his "View Asknewverse" already had me halfway turned around about him. It got worse when he published his "collected writings," which led me to predict he was now entering his "Mel Brooks in the '80s" phase. I had more to say about the book, which you can see in the Amazon link above.

I'd been thinking of posting something about this Joel Siegel thing, either in comment on All Along The Watchtower or here, but I'd decided not to. I just figured I didn't have too much to say about it.

I used to think, at the very least, you could say the man makes the movies that he wants to make, and he puts them out to stand or fall on their own. As a creator who wants very much to do something like that, at least I could honor and salute him for it.

Siegel should apologize for disrupting a screening, and you can't really blame Smith for using every chance to promote his movie-well, maybe you can. Wait a minute. Emerson has three examples of critics who didn't like one of Smith's movies being kept from press screenings of those in the future.

So, Smith wants the good reviews without risking getting the bad ones. Who can blame him? I suggest he just grow some cojones, be upfront and honest about it, and announce publicly: "If you don't like one of my movies, you will never be allowed to a press screening of Un Film de Kevin Smith again."

Joel Siegel. Did a dumb thing for which he could apologize-not to Smith, but to his fellow reviewers whose experience he disturbed.

Kevin Smith. Off the artistic roll call. Forever.