Kevin Smith stood me up.

I was scheduled to interview him one-on-one, but he skipped out on our date so he could go ogle the booth babes and tchotchkes at the Belkin booth here at Macworld Expo, apparently. Snootchie bootchies to you, too, jerk. (Sob.)

So I had to sit in the audience with all the other sweaty Mac nerds and listen to him tell us how the iPad might change the future of movies.

"Will it change filmmaking?" Smith said during his question-and-answer session at Macworld Expo 2010 on Thursday. "I'm sure it'll be used to kill somebody in a movie at one point. Some guy's got an iPad sticking out of his head. And Steve Jobs is like, that's not what I wanted."

At least he put on a good show. Hailed by many as the man who made comic-book-loving Star Wars geeks cool, Smith sprinkled words of wisdom in between smatterings of F-bombs and references to his genitalia in response to questions posed by audience members.

Smith was the only celebrity to appear at Macworld Expo now that Apple – led by that guy who wears turtlenecks and granddaddy jeans – has permanently backed out of the 25-year-old trade show.

The writer and independent director, well known for his films Dogma, Chasing Amy and Mallrats, shared his thoughts on Avatar, the drama between Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno, and the future of independent filmmaking in a troubled economy.

"I enjoyed it for what it was," Smith said of James Cameron's Avatar. "I'm totally with the big blue fucking cats. Especially the one cat that was sexy and I wanted to fuck her."

As for the Tonight Show, Smith snarkily replied that nobody watches either of the hosts' shows anyway, as shown by their ratings. He admitted he never watches TV, because, he said, "I smoke a lot of weed so I fall asleep at like 8 o'clock at night."

Filmmaking students in the audience asked Smith what they should do to succeed as film creators after college.

"I'd make one," he said. "Make one that everybody likes. What do you think happened? Think I was standing over a virgin holding a necronomicon? The trick is to make something everybody digs."

However, Smith, whose mainstream movie Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, is due in theaters Feb. 26, acknowledged that the independent cinema scene has fallen on hard times. He mourned over Disney's recent shutdown of art-house production company Miramax Films.

"I was very sad when Miramax shuttered," he said. "It shows you the state of the business right now. Hate to throw that out to the independent filmmakers, but the market is fucked."

Updated 9 p.m. PDT: Smith and I have clarified over Twitter that he did not stand me up; our inability to connect was likely a failure between public relations flacks.

Photos: Jon Snyder/Wired.com