Monday, June 30, 2008

Will Smith creates Scientoloschool?


From TMZ, The fancy new school in a fancy L.A. suburb founded by Will Smith is still getting heat for possibly teaching as much L. Ron Hubbard as F. Scott Fitzgerald.

But Will is hancocking all the speculation, in the L.A. Times, even though some of its teachers are Scientologists, and even though it will use teaching methods developed by LRH. Honchos at New Village Academy say that the school has no religious affiliation, and that faculty won't be pushing any Dianetical agenda.

But critics say that "study technology" is a Scientolomethod that New Village will use – but isn't recognized as useful by anyone.

14 comments:

miko564 said...

Damn this is disappointing, I have always like Smith, he makes mediocre movies watchable. He seems very cool in interviews as well. Maybe Tom Cruise DOES have magic powers...bringing Will into the fold, getting Katie to pretend he isn't gay.

AC said...

i agree. is the will smith scientology thing true then? i was hoping it was just a rumor.

HandsomeStan said...

TOTALLY true and very crushing, because he's every bit as charming and cool in real life. (ahem, sorry - I Am Legend)

And he's is going to be our President in 2024, if not earlier, and if society lasts that long. Keep that in mind. He's said as much in interviews, that he's "interested" in politics.

Just in time to welcome Emperor Xenu back to Earth.

AC said...

thanks handsome stan for the true inside scoop. i used to joke with jpx that it would be fun to go out to hollywood to be a therapist to the stars (because i am fascinated by all things entertainment), but i probably wouldn't like it at all.

HandsomeStan said...

Nope. They're all certifiable. And highly paid, at that.

There's like some invisible line of income as a movie star that, once you cross it, allows you to embrace any wacky ideology or moral code that you find suitable.

Don't get me started on the stories (some eye- and ear-witness accounts) of who's gay and who's not. Friggin troubling. Not because being gay is wrong, it's not, but it's the elaborate sham of the "normal" life for Us Magazine that they lead...)

Which does NOT, in any way, apply to Clooney. That guy is fucking AWESOME. In his presence, you feel like the nerd in high school who just had the quarterback of the football team put his arm around your shoulders and announce to Study Hall, "I like this guy."

And the whole CREW feels that way. On every movie of his. A total champ, all the way around. He could be Troy McClure, sleeping with the fishes, but it wouldn't matter, because he's just cool, man.

The rest of 'em? Batshit lunatics, completely out of touch with anything approaching reality.

There, I've said it.

AC said...

the closeted gay thing is something to do with revenues, or who can star in a particular vehicle?

cool to hear about clooney! so some day vote for him for president we can?

HandsomeStan said...

Oh, it's ABSOLUTELY driven by that. Some wacky perceived notion of who they are to society, and how many people will go see them if they are/are not "out of the closet."

I'm speaking, of course, about Cruise and Travolta. Both totally gay, both very nice to work with, very professional, but still enshrouded in this web of self-deception and lies that is misguided at best, and self-destructive at worst.

I don't know what kind of energy I would have to expend to convince the world that my sexual orientation was the OPPOSITE of what is true, simply to earn a bigger paycheck. But, surely it's enormous.

And don't call me "Shirley."

It's like the steroids thing: just admit it, and you will find, surprisingly (but not really) that people will respect the truth more than anything else. And still pay.

I don't know, y'all, they're all totally fucked up. Except for Clooney and Julia. They seem to be normal, albeit super-famous billionaire normal. But they're the minority.

And so ends my report from the front lines of popular culture.

miko564 said...

I love hearing that Clooney is that cool AND a decent guy.
It's like the stories you hear about Sinatra telling club owners either Sammy plays the club, or none of the Rat Pack plays the club, ever.

You just WANT these guys to be that cool in real life.

Also nice to know Julia is that way too. Julia on Letterman is one of my favorite things.

Octopunk said...

I try my best to just ignore who these people are in real life. I still like Cruise in most movies.

Unfortunately it doesn't take much to burst that bubble. I used to like Ethan Hawke as an actor until a friend of mine dated him in college; her stories about him pretty much put me off any movie he's in.

(Nothing too surprising, just an egotistical jerk.)

AC said...

handsome stan, sounds like scientology doesn't "cure" gayness after all. shocking.

i'm in favor of people being out, but it's not my paycheck that would suffer. having one's sex life under the glare of public scrutiny probably isn't pleasant for anyone no matter what their sexual orientation.

HandsomeStan said...

Oh, no kidding. I can't really imagine (nor can any of us) what it's like to have magazines and photographers and a drooling public DEVOTED to capturing that moment when we're pumping gas or scratching our butt or watching our dog take a shit in the park ("They're Just Like Us!!!").

But the Scientology/gay thing has always struck me as very strange, because, in the first place, it's total hearsay with both of them; I wasn't THERE (thank goodness), but the source is completely reliable.

And in the second place it implies a deception of both the public and themselves. It could all be nonsense, maybe they're both wonderful family men and their wives are sexually fulfilled and they just happen to follow an ideology that could have come out of the video game Arkanoid.

But I'm pretty sure that's not the case. And that's kind of twisted and weird. Like mental-patient weird. When you feel like you're above normal people, you can just act in any kind of way you want, regardless of society's norms and moral codes. Or so it seems with them.

And I'm really happy to have brought up Arkanoid here, in what I think is the First Time. If anyone can give me the verbatim history of why this paddle is hitting a ball (the "history" you get on-screen when you put in a quarter), I will kneel before Zod. When you look at it on the Wacky Scale, Scientology is completely in lockstep with Arkanoid.

And incidentally, what's the real half-life for comments on the blog? How many days have to elapse before you just let it go? Two?

AC said...

the self-and-other deception is a problem for me on several levels, and as you noted above, the energy and resources devoted to that project seem misguided and unhealthy (aka twisted and weird). all so that people who are already millionaires continue to earn millions more; i suppose it is the american way.

excellent question about the lifespan of a particular blog post, handsomestan! maybe the founding fathers of the blog could speak to that? or maybe this comment thread has already exceeded its half-life and no one will ever read this. :)

JPX said...

JPX reads all and constantly checks old posts in the hopes that people are still writing stuff =)

HandsomeStan said...

Well, hell yeah! That's great news, but there's GOT to be some sort of average lifespan for comments. I'm gonna go ahead and say 4 days, unless the topic is crucially important. (And by "important," I mean, "life-changing banter over a particular element of pop culture."

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

F'n "Thon!!!!

Malevolent

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