Going Clear — Page 3

And speaking of, many plaudits to Mr. Gibney, who, in the past 10 years, has quietly become the most potent American documentarian of our life and times.

And, Namo, thank you for that Tony Ortega/Sylvia DeWall link. How heartbreaking.

Updated On: 4/14/15 at 07:27 AM

All I know of is Beghe.

Some people with money are starting a YouTube channel to tell the stories of kids who grew up in Scientology.

From Cradle to Slave

That's Margaret Cho's line about him. Just remember what Haggis said in the documentary… as far as you know when you're in, it's just bigotry if people are criticizing Scientology, which makes a lot of people circle the wagons and go into defensive mode. Which is why JT said he wouldn't watch the doc, because it's coming from a negative place. This way, as far as he's aware, he's shutting out closed minded people who are attacking out of prejudice.

One of my favorite things, next to theatre, are good documentaries. I think it's such an incredible art form. "Going Clear" was an incredible expose on Scientology, completely captivating from start to finish--although like most of you, some of it was repetition from what I already knew. Sparky was fantastic--that part about her dying child made me shrudder. And what a power punch of an ending. The scariest part, I think, is that I think LRH was really crazy enough to believe the crap he thought up. Agreed that it is in a way very sad that John Travolta is trapped for life in the Church of Scientology, and how god damn manipulative they are. One of my family members works at a Ritz Carlton in Palm Springs, and Travolta has come in numerous times apparently aggressively hitting on the male workers, and has since been banned. I think his homosexuality is pretty known at this point. It's sad that is probably a lot of what is holding him back, and probably other crazy things he's said in auditing sessions. I also had no idea about Shelly Miscavich--that's wild. I think what fascinates me the most about it is that so much has been exposed about this awful, terrible "church" and yet there's no sign of a tax exemption re-examination, probably because so much money is being pumped to keep people quiet. I trust, in time, that will change so ToS can stop continuing to run the lives of so many people.

One time when I was in high school as a joke with two of my friends, I went to the Church of Scientology in New York City, and I remember being in a small room watching a documentary on Dianetics and then they tried to get me to sign up to be audited. I remember how persistent they were that I wrote down a bunch of fake information and tried to book it out of there as soon as possible.

Slightly unrelated, but did anyone see Alex Timber's "A Very Merry Unauthorized Scientology Pageant"? What did you think of it? I remember at around the same time as when I visited the CoS I was directing a play in which one of my cast members was actually in that, and I'm kicking myself now that I lost touch with her so I can ask her about it. Did anyone see it? I love the opening number.

"Hey, It's A Happy Day" from "A Very Merry Unauthorized Christmas Pageant"

Updated On: 4/22/15 at 11:40 PM

According to Wiki, they did--at least to some extent:

"Early in the production of the musical, the president of the Church of Scientology in New York sent a letter to the producer pointing out the Church's history of litigation. This led Timbers and Jarrow to insert the word "Unauthorized" into the title, upon the advice of legal counsel. During the Los Angeles production, representatives of the Church of Scientology visited the production staff in the midst of rehearsals and handed out documentation of successful litigation against critics of Scientology. Parents of some of the Los Angeles cast members also received phone calls from Scientologists in the entertainment industry, asking them not to allow their children to perform in the musical."

Yeah, so his boyfriend Paul Barressi just happened to show up in the locker room scene in "Perfect."

I always kiss my buddies on the mouth.

No, that's still pretty unusual.

To pull back the curtain on the gay fantasy.