Kevin Smith vs Joel Siegal

DON'T joke about women, donkeys and bestiality if you expect Joel Siegel to watch your movie. That's what director Kevin Smith found out when the pun-loving "Good Morning America" film critic stormed out of a press screening of Smith's "Clerks II," which opens Friday - an act that's sparked a vicious war of words between the two.

"Time to go!" roared Siegel to his fellow critics. "First movie I've walked out of in 30 [bleeping] years!" His tirade came 40 minutes into the long-awaited Weinstein Company sequel to Smith's 1994 cult classic about two foul-mouthed Long Island convenience store clerks who razz customers and goof off.

In the scene that sent Siegel to the exit, the characters graphically discuss hiring a woman to perform sexual favors on a donkey. Siegel told The New York Post: "It was so foul and mean and repulsive. I finally realized I could not say anything positive . . . I wasn't ready for this kind of smut . . . I hope he doesn't make any more movies."

An apoplectic Smith fired back on his MySpace blog: "Getting a bad review from Siegel is like a badge of honor. This is the guy who stole his mustachioed-critic shtick from Gene Shalit years ago, and still refuses to give it back. This is a guy who seemingly prides himself on his own nyuk-nyuk wordplay. For 'Pirates 2,' he made us all titter with 'Yo, Ho, Ho and a Bottle of Fun' . . . He made us squeal with delight when he wrote, 'Wheelie Good Time for "Cars." ' I mean, Fozzy [bleeping] Bear laughs at this guy."

And there's more: "I don't need Joel Siegel to [bleep] my [bleep] the way he apparently [bleeps] M. Night Shyamalan's, gushing over his flick ['The Lady in the Water'] before he's even seen it, but [bleep] man, man - how about a little common [bleeping] courtesy? You never, never disrupt a movie, simply because you don't like it. Cardinal rule of moviegoing: Shut your [bleeping] mouth while the movie's playing.

"I don't come down to your job and slap the taste out of your mouth for coming up with a line like, ' "Shark Tale" Is a Halibut Good Time' - so don't [bleep] with my stuff while it's still screening . . . What are you, a 12-year-old boy cutting loose with your pals at a Friday night screening of 'Scary Movie' 4' while your parents are in a theater down the hall watching 'The Devil Wears Prada'? Leave the diva-like behavior and drama-queen antics to the movie stars, not the movie reviewer, ya' rude-ass [bleep]."