Although the Church denied that its actions had anything to do with the Oscars, Lawrence Wright suggested that its "more feverish attention to the documentary" had to do with it feeling "threatened by the possibility that [the Hollywood] community would examine the church more closely" as the Oscars approached. Redeem voucher.

"[36] The BBC's Owen Gleiberman praised it as "the most exciting – and disturbing – work of cinematic non-fiction in a long time" and awarded Going Clear five stars, describing it as having "the scary intensity of a thriller. Pinterest. The going rate on ebay.co.uk for imported copies seems to be about £20. Just seeing him on gaudy stages, glad-handing the church’s current leader, David Miscavige, before a worshipful crowd, is like watching deleted scenes from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. [30], Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes collected 87 reviews as of September 24, 2015, of which 94% were positive.

According to Alex Gibney, "Every step of the way, every distributor, every festival has received multiple threatening letters from the Church of Scientology. And I've made many, many mistakes in my life. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. That said you have to admire the money making capability of the man and his legacy.

The film is a complete let-down after reading the book, (only tells a tenth of the story). An excellent - and deeply frightening - read. Anyone outside the Church who criticises or attacks it, whether journalists or tax officers or former Scientologists, is seemingly "fair game" for harassment and attack. A documentary looking at the inner-workings of the Church of Scientology. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The implicit charge against celebrities such as Cruise and Travolta is that they turn a blind eye to the bad behaviour around them.

[1] 'Spanky' Taylor's appearance on stage, along with the daughter from whom the church had forced her to "disconnect", reduced many in the audience to tears.

You can understand why the Church of Scientology feels such alarm. Sorry, there was a problem saving your cookie preferences. "[31] Metacritic gave the film a score of 80/100 based on 11 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".

Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. One of the film's frustrations is that no current Church members appear on screen to offer their point of view. Interesting, detailed, well-written and important. The church's campaign included producing an anti-Gibney film and approaches to members of the Academy's documentary branch, responsible for selecting contenders for the awards.

Like Wright's book, Going Clear is, effectively, divided into two parts. "[28], The film eventually received a low-key release in June 2015 in 18 theaters in England and Scotland. Political machinations have seen a private member’s bill by Mike Nesbitt MLA (the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party) blocked in order to hold a consultation.
The interviewees Gibney has collected are an impressive bunch.

Start your Independent Premium subscription today. Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 8 November 2019. "[46], The church also published a "special report" attacking the film on one of its websites, started a new Twitter account which claimed to be "taking a resolute stand against the broadcasting and publishing of false information"[45] and bought numerous ads around Google search results relating to the film in order to direct searchers to its anti-Going Clear pages.

A Depression-era pulp sci-fi writer who published more than 1,000 books, Hubbard hammered away so hard at the typewriter that sweat would drip on to the keyboard.

If this should stop working, please contact me, and I … Another bizarre element is its "creation myth", involving galactic overlords, volcanoes, disembodied immortal spirits and hydrogen bomb explosions. Wright speculates that Scientology became a form of "self-therapy" for its troubled creator: "If he (Hubbard) was just a fraud, then, at some point, he would have taken the money and run but he never did that. We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism. [1] The première was so popular that even those with tickets were unable to find seats, because so many VIP pass-holders chose to watch the film, displacing ordinary festival-goers. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Very well written and interesting. If you’re a seller, Fulfilment by Amazon can help you grow your business.
The film premiered at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

It means the new public interest defence, the new honest comment defence (the “Simon Singh” defence), the bar on libel tourists, the hurdle to stop corporations suing individuals and the new provisions to prevent vexatious and trivial claims, do not apply in Northern Ireland or Scotland. "[6] Lesley Felperin of The Hollywood Reporter characterized it as an "impeccably assembled and argued film" that "represents a brave, timely intervention into debates around the organization that have been simmering for some time. A feat of reporting." New customers signing up before 27th September will only have to pay £1 for their first month – for more information, click here. Now here we have it, and it’s quite obvious why the likes of Tom Cruise and John Travolta wouldn’t want you to see it. Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case For Reasonable Doubt? Going Clear explores the dark heart of Scientology brilliantly and relentlessly, but it doesn’t seem that the film will be broadcast in the UK any time soon.

Having famously faced down the IRS, the Church is not liable for taxes.