Joel Siegel

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Joel E. Siegel (born July 7, 1943) is an American film critic for the ABC morning news show Good Morning America.

Siegel graduated from UCLA and began working as a radio disc jockey and newscaster. He also worked as a freelancing writer and wrote for numerous publications and advertising agencies. Through his freelancing work, he was offered the book review position with the Los Angeles Times. He moved to New York to become an entertainment critic in the early 1970s. Siegel has also worked for WABC-TV, the ABC flagship local station in New York City, as a film critic since the 1970s.

In 1997, at 54, he was diagnosed with colon cancer ^[1]. At last report the cancer was in remission, although not entirely cured.

[edit] Clerks II incident

On July 17, 2006, Siegel walked out before the end of the film Clerks II (specifically, 40 minutes into the film while two characters were discussing bestiality) during a press screening in New York City. He reportedly proclaimed loudly "Time to go!" and "This is the first movie I’ve walked out of in 30 fucking years!" [1] Kevin Smith strongly criticized his behavior as disruptive and unprofessional [2] in his blog.

On July 18, 2006, Siegel was contacted via telephone by the Opie and Anthony comedy radio program, which had Smith in studio. Siegel did not realize he was talking to Smith until about halfway through the interview, but apologized for creating a disturbance. He seems to believe Smith overreacted to it, but that he was proud of walking out of a movie with which he felt disgusted. Meanwhile, Smith maintained that he was not so much upset by Siegel's opinion of the movie as his noisy and distracting exit. Confronted with the "punny" headlines on Siegel's website , Siegel maintained that he in fact did not write those headlines, leading to more ribbing by the hosts. [3]