Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief

[mochakitty]

I've posted this in the television thread since it's a HBO documentary film that will be available through their channel starting March 29th. It's also having a limited run in theaters so feel free to move it if you think it should be in the film thread instead.

From Wikipedia:

Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief is a 2015 documentary film about Scientology directed by Alex Gibney, based on Lawrence Wright's 2013 book, Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief. Produced by HBO, the film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. It received widespread praise from critics for its deconstruction of the church's claims through a combination of presenting a condensed history of Scientology and its founder, how celebrities interact with the church, the stories of a number of ex-members and the abuse and exploitation that they described seeing and experiencing. The church responded vehemently to the film, complaining to film critics about their reviews and denouncing the film-makers and their interviewees. Going Clear will run on HBO on March 29, 2015 and in a limited number of theaters beginning on March 13, 2015.

Official Sites: Going Clear @ HBO.com, Going Clear @ Jigsawprods.com

Trailer

Going Clear @ IMDb.com

Official Twitters: Jigsaw Productions, HBO Documentaries, Alex Gibney

[FiggyPudding]

The Co$ has apparently paid big bucks to infest Google searches for Going Clear with advertisements leading directly to their absurd propaganda films. I saw a brief clip on one of the entertainment shows. Vintage $cientology nonsense.

[prisma]

I really want to see this, but I don't have HBO and I would be astonished if it came to a theater in my town. Drat.

[Ella]

I go to a website called Putlocker and I think within a couple of days of the HBO run they'll have it up on there. You can always check there.

[Babycakes]

I've been scouring the streaming sites for a couple of days, and no luck. It doesn't officially hit HBO until the 29th, so it should be up by the end of the night. That's how it works with Games of Thrones. /someone who hasn't paid for premier channels in over 10 years.

[kostgard]

In the run-up to Going Clear airing, Paul Haggis has written an essay on the clams.

Leah Remini has tweeted that she's seen the movie, and she says it is all accurate.

Interestingly, all the reviews say that they hit Tom Cruise pretty hard. Travolta gets mentioned a lot, but mostly out of pity because they believe he is being blackmailed into staying with the church. The view on Tom seems to be "he knows exactly what goes on in the church and has done jack shit about it."

[prisma]

Did anybody watch? I've got to go see if I can find it online now.

[kostgard]

I did (pf course). It was mostly stuff that I already knew, but it was presented well and I think it is very interesting hearing all the people tell their personal stories about how they joined Scientology and how they got out.

The first half is mostly people telling their personal stories and the history of Hubbard and Scientology, the second half talks about how they got tax exemption, Travolta, Cruise, and basically how Miscavige and the clams are evil and awful.

They included some footage of Tom's ridiculous birthday party. Unfortunately, they did not include the truly embarassing dance moves he showed off.

[Witchie]

Listening to Miscavige's speech in the first 10 mins had me going wtf is this man talking about.

[smitten]

I watched. It was good and followed along with a lot of what was in the book. So nothing too shocking if you've read it, but I'd love to hear opinions of those that haven't.

Random thoughts:

I was a little surprised nothing about Lisa McPherson was mentioned.

Jason Beghe came across as whacked out. They really did a number on him. Or he was like that to begin with.

How iron clad and scary are Katie Holmes' contracts if she wasn't even mentioned?

I'm now on the Suri is Tommy Davis's biological kid band wagon. She looks just like him. Even in those most recent pics.

I hope this has some sort of impact the way Blackfish did on Seaworld and An Apology to Elephants did on circuses.
ETA: and of course The Jinx did on Durst!