Louis Theroux’s 'My Scientology Movie'

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The most controversial film selected for this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, Vaxxed, will probably get more media attention than any other, which is a shame considering that Vaxxed isn’t actually going to premiere there after festival founder Robert DeNiro was pressured to de-select it due to its controversial subject matter. The other film that tackles a hotly debated and enduringly polarizing topic is Louis Theroux’s My Scientology Movie.

For those of you unfamiliar with Louis Theroux, he’s the son of writer Paul Theroux and an accomplished television documentarian for the BBC. He’s one of those journalists who appears in his own films, a la Michael Moore, except far more polite and much skinnier. The conceit of My Scientology Movie is that he’s supposedly casting actors in Los Angeles to re-enact scenes featuring Scientology leader David Miscavage and main man Tom Cruise. His partner in most of this is ex-Scientologist Marty Rathbun, who is as much the star of the film as Theroux himself is. They manage to cast a remarkably good Miscavage, and the three of them feature heavily as Theroux engages with cult members who are trying to prevent the film (or at least that’s the implication).


Andrew Perez as David Miscavige, MY SCIENTOLOGY MOVIE. Courtesy Red Box Films

Theroux claims more than once that he’s interested in the teachings of Scientology, but he doesn’t actually do anything to uncover any of the positives of the organization, should there be any. The film certainly shows that the cult is a good client of English law firm Carter Ruck, self-described as “One of the UK’s best-known law firms.”

...http://disinfo.com/2016/04/louis-therouxs-scientology-movie/

Video here: http://video.ew.com/v/114509408/my-scientology-movie-watch-an-exclusive-clip-from-the-tribeca-doc.htm