New P. T. Anderson movie - shades of L. Ron Hubbard?

[Jeff]

If this thread's now about Will Smith, I'm off to the Splicing adjacent thread titles thread.

[Sweet Tooth]

Here, of all places, nobody should ever have to say "don't believe everything you read."

YOPJ

I'm a little dismayed to hear PTA is COS 'cause he's BRILLIANT.

But wait, he's not. Pretty sure he's Catholic. And very much brilliant.

[Will] Smith, a good buddy of Scientology poster boy Tom Cruise, denies he is a church member. "You don't have to be Jewish to be a friend of Steven Spielberg. You don't have to be a Muslim to be a friend of Muhammad Ali. And you don't have to be a Scientologist to be a friend of Tom Cruise," Smith tells us. "I am a Christian. I am a student of all religions. And I respect all people and all paths."
http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2008/ ... scien.html

This Will Smith:

Hollywood power couple Will Smith and Jada Pinkett-Smith have won critical acclaim for pumping nearly $1 million of their own money into a new private school that will offer organic meals, laptops for every student and an environment of learning based on "equity" and "respect" to create "citizens of the world."

Here's what the parents of the school's pupils aren't being told:

The New Village Academy plans to use some teaching methods developed within the Church of Scientology and has hired a team of Scientologists to put them into action.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,360642,00.html

And why give Paul Anderson the benefit of the doubt over Theresa and Jeremy? (By asking this, I'm not suggesting one should necessarily do the reverse either.)

[compared2what?]

Code Unknown, if there's any reason at all to think that Paul Thomas Anderson is CoS that goes beyond the LA Times's second-hand characterization of something, I'm honestly not aware of it. Beyond which, it honestly doesn't strike me as at all compatible with either anything Paul Thomas Anderson has ever done that I know about or anything that Scientology has ever done that I know about. And fwiw, though it's not, like, a specialty area or anything, I'm pretty well up-to-speed on Paul-Thomas-Anderson-related news, because I'm a fan. And I'm also pretty well up to speed on Scientology-related news because I'm not a fan.

Will Smith isn't comparable, that was no surprise, He'd been getting the heavy come on from them for quite a while before he went public with his officially non-Scientology beliefs. Plus -- and admittedly this is a weak-ass point, but fwiw -- insofar as it's possible to infer a person's priorities and vulnerabilities from their role choices, professional associations, publicity and the rumors circulating about him, he seemed like a nice natural fit for them and they for him.

PTA, on the other hand, has always been very cautious and sparing wrt how much personal trust he's willing to risk investing in anyone who isn't already a close and long-time collaborator and friend of his. To a fault, even. Very closely guarded sets, excessive precautions about leaked scripts and screeners, decidedly un-gut-spilling with the press, and so forth. He's also always been very resistant to encroachments on his independence by authority, at least professionally speaking. In addition to which, his apparently naturally occurring strong interest in sins-of-the-father-type cinematic themes is attested to by every movie he's every made with the exception of Punch-Drunk Love.

And finally, Scientology doesn't exactly make a habit out of seeking occasions that are bound to provoke more widespread interest in the life of L. Ron Hubbard by the general public and media than they have any way of controlling. It wouldn't be in their better interests to do that. And there's absolutely no way they could stop every movie critic or, for that matter, every movie-goer in the goddamn world from downloading a copy of A Piece of Blue Sky to see how Paul Thomas Anderson's putative fictionalized biographical whitewash compared to the story already on the record elsewhere.

The proposition just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, basically.

[Nordic]

Newsflash: Movies are ART.

So's this:




Doesn't mean I have to like it.

[RocketMan]

Newsflash: Movies are ART.

So's this:




Doesn't mean I have to like it.

That's not art. And even if it is, you're accusing PTA of being artsy-fartsy and that picture's the exact opposite of that. I'd like to say more but c2w's made all the points I have to make, and with much more flair at that.

[IanEye]

But its all subjective isn't it.

well, thanks for humoring me Fresno. To be honest I only vaguely remember posting this analogy of the Beatles to Mr. Anderson.

On Thursday, the company i work for went through another round of layoffs. Somehow, i yet again managed to avoid the axe, but unfortunately some of my friends did not.
I always keep a Rizla tucked away in my car for such occasions, and apparently so do some of my friends. We all ended up packed together in a small Scion, listening to the Beatles Mono boxset, smoking marijuana and doing slow loops through the industrial park we work in.

Although I laugh & I act like a clown
Beneath this mask eye am wearing a frown
My tears are falling like rain from the sky
Is it for her or myself that I cry?

So, the analogy made a lot more sense to me when I was really high and had several shots of Patrón in me.
Perhaps a better analogy would be to compare Mr. Anderson to Sidney Lumet. Mr. Lumet was born in 1924 and he directed "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" in 2007.
Like Mr. Lumet, I get the feeling Mr. Anderson has a lot of movies left in him.

Me, I'm just the lucky kind
Love to hear you say that love is love
And though we may be blind
Love is here to stay & that's enough...

[RocketMan]

But its all subjective isn't it.

well, thanks for humoring me Fresno. To be honest I only vaguely remember posting this analogy of the Beatles to Mr. Anderson.

On Thursday, the company i work for went through another round of layoffs. Somehow, i yet again managed to avoid the axe, but unfortunately some of my friends did not.
I always keep a Rizla tucked away in my car for such occasions, and apparently so do some of my friends. We all ended up packed together in a small Scion, listening to the Beatles Mono boxset, smoking marijuana and doing slow loops through the industrial park we work in.

Although I laugh & I act like a clown
Beneath this mask eye am wearing a frown
My tears are falling like rain from the sky
Is it for her or myself that I cry?

So, the analogy made a lot more sense to me when I was really high and had several shots of Patrón in me.
Perhaps a better analogy would be to compare Mr. Anderson to Sidney Lumet. Mr. Lumet was born in 1924 and he directed "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead" in 2007.
Like Mr. Lumet, I get the feeling Mr. Anderson has a lot of movies left in him.

Me, I'm just the lucky kind
Love to hear you say that love is love
And though we may be blind
Love is here to stay & that's enough...

I nominate this for the "Bestest post of 12/6/09 EVER" award.

[Code Unknown]

If this thread's now about Will Smith, I'm off to the Splicing adjacent thread titles thread.

Give me a break, Jeff, that reference was 100% relevant.

[Jeff]

If this thread's now about Will Smith, I'm off to the Splicing adjacent thread titles thread.

Give me a break, Jeff, that reference was 100% relevant.

Please refer to c2w's exposition above for all the reasons why it wasn't.

[Code Unknown]

If this thread's now about Will Smith, I'm off to the Splicing adjacent thread titles thread.

Give me a break, Jeff, that reference was 100% relevant.

Please refer to c2w's exposition above for all the reasons why it wasn't.

Please refer to the original context of my posting it for why it was:

I'm a little dismayed to hear PTA is COS 'cause he's BRILLIANT.

But wait, he's not. Pretty sure he's Catholic. And very much brilliant.

Namely, it was specifically in response to your implication that because he's Catholic or claims to be Catholic that somehow ruled him out from being a Scientologist.