Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Kevin Smith is just like everyone.

After Clerks, Smith went on to make a bunch of other mostly funny and mostly successful films. But, in every interview, he still came across as just a regular guy who dug movies. Sure, he made some weak movies, but even Cop Out has a scene where Tracy Morgan punches a child in the dick. So how bad can it be really? And even if he makes a REALLY shitty movie, he just seems like a cool guy, the type of dude you want to sit down and have a beer with. His speaking engagements are always hilarious, his Podcasts are entertaining, and he always struck me as very down to Earth and just naturally funny. There's a video of him making fun of a heckler at Comic-Con and it always brings a smile to my face. Always charming, always self-deprecating. Real class act.

Also he's from Jersey, so we must stick together.

But, Unfortunately ...

Kevin Smith can sort of be a huge baby. He never used to have a problem with critics but, over the last few years, he's campaigned against them several times, on his podcast, in interviews or on Twitter. He doesn't like the idea of letting a bunch of critics see his movie for free if they're just going to shit on it; he'd rather just show it to fans and friends and his Twitter followers.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

The thing is, it's not that he just suddenly said, "I don't like critics anymore." He started his anti-critics crusade immediately after they gave bad reviews of Cop Out. Once critics admitted that this one movie he made was maybe kind of shitty, he took to Twitter and said that, in the future, he's done with critics' screenings, and he very clearly stated that he would not do press interviews to promote his latest movie. He's even distributing it himself, which would be cool, but his reason is that he refuses to let anyone else distribute it because "they don't get it." It's the director's equivalent of taking your ball away when you get tagged out at the schoolyard.

It's always hard to hear or read criticism about something you made, but there are better ways to handle it. We get our fair share of criticism in the comments here at Cracked. For all of the wonderful folks who support us, there are plenty that have nothing but negative things to say. Usually it's to the tune of "This article would've been better if it wasn't written by such a shithead" or "I liked you better last year, before you got all that shit in your head," or "Uh, actually, [fart noise fart noise fart noise]." Happens to all of us. You can read and then brush off the comments, or you can read and make adjustments in the future in an effort to cater to a few of the unhappy commenters, or you can straight up not read the comments. I've done all three.