The arc of Kevin Smith’s career over the past few years has been a pretty fascinating one to watch, from the critical and commercial failure of Cop Out and his talk of retiring from filmmaking altogether to his renewed interest in low budget indie films and self-distribution with Red State and his newfound love of the horror genre with Tusk. Throughout it all, Smith has seemingly struggled with his situation emotionally, expressing disappointment, anger and frustration at the excess of the movie industry and lashing out at film critics in particular. After Cop Out, he vowed never to screen his movies for critics again and he even started his own “anti-movie review” show on Hulu called Spoilers. With the release of Tusk, however, he may have finally come to terms with it all. Is he finally ready to accept criticism again?

In a recent interview with Buzzfeed, Kevin Smith talks about reading and retweeting a review of Tusk that appeared in Variety following its premiere at TIFF:

“It was such a crazy emotional moment where I got a little wet-eyed, just by virtue of the fact that for so long, I was so fucking angry… It was nice to let go of that. I’m too fucking old to fight or care anymore. I’m old now enough to know some people are going to like it and some people are not going to like it. And that’s way easier to say with something like Tusk, because yeah, some people are not going to like it. I’m more shocked that anybody likes it. I’m delighted.”

So yeah, it probably helps that the review by Scott Foundas was praising the film, but it appears that Smith was going to be screening Tusk for critics either way. Personally, I am happy for the guy. It sounds like he has finally found peace by making movies for himself first and everyone else second. As for Tusk, thus far it seems to be getting positive reviews almost across the board. Are you happy to see Kevin Smith finally bury the hatchet with film critics?