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Scientology Sunday Funnies: Tom Cruise’s Son Connor Fights the North Koreans!

 
On Sundays, we reveal the latest Scientology fundraising mailers that get sent to us during the week. And we have some good ones to show you this time. But first, we wondered if you had noticed, like we did, that Connor Cruise’s big action-movie debut is coming up!

Tom’s son appears in the remake of Red Dawn which opens on Thanksgiving. (Connor’s only other film credit was his appearance as Will Smith’s younger self in 2008’s Seven Pounds, which New York Times reviewer A.O. Scott called “Among the most transcendently…crazily awful motion pictures ever made.”) Take a gander at the Red Dawn trailer in all of its survivalist-porn goodness, and keep your eye out for Connor aiming a really big gun.

Connor takes aim!

 

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If Connor, who is 17, looks surprisingly young to you in that shot, your eyes are not deceiving you: this Red Dawn remake was supposed to come out in 2010 but then was shelved while MGM got through some financial troubles.

And there are other reasons for this movie’s bumpy journey to your local cineplex. We have to say, the first time we heard a remake was coming, our initial reaction was, RED dawn? As in the Commies?

Sure enough, it turns out there has been some controversy about who’s invading the United States this time. In the fun, paranoid right-wing fever dream of the original, our mountain heartland became a land of concentration camps under Cuban forces and their Soviet allies. But today? Fidel Castro’s forces aren’t really the stuff of American nightmares anymore.

So the remake’s filmmakers decided that Washington would substitute for Colorado, and this time the invasion would come from the Far East, in the form of Chinese troops.

But once news of that leaked out, there was such a hue and cry, the bad guys were turned into North Koreans in post-production.

North Koreans? Would they even have enough food to survive the ocean crossing?

Well, we’re sure the country’s stockpilers will come out of their compounds in droves to see this one, and we can only hope Connor’s star turn works out for him. It may not be War of the Worlds, but you have to start somewhere.

One question: has Connor’s interview with Matt Lauer been set up yet?

And now, let’s take a look at this week’s trove from our tipsters…

First up, we have a breathless report about the Basics being translated into Chinese. Taiwan will apparently never be the same. But what really caught our eye, after the usual rah-rah about Scientology’s inexorable expansion, is the extremely creepy attempt to solicit information for recruiting Scientology kids into the Sea Org. Shiver.

 
For our second item, we have the text of an e-mail that went around to church members in the LA area last week. Apparently, Big Blue — the former Cedars of Lebanon hospital that forms the worldwide admininstrative headquarters of Scientology in downtown Los Angeles — is going through some kind of renovation. (Is it being “Ideal”-ized?) Have any of our readers noticed something going on there this weekend?

Hello!

So the day has finally come – ASHO IS MOVING!!!

For Foundation students, Saturday morning, the 10th of November at 9:00 am, your roll call will be in your new temporary course rooms. For Day students, your first roll call in the new temporary spaces is Monday morning, 12 November at 9:00 am.

Things to know:

— The entrance to the new spaces is up the steps on Fountain Avenue, directly under the SCIENTOLOGY sign!

— You may park in the north lot by LA Org, but take into account you will have to walk all the way around as there is no through route. Easiest is to park in the parking structure on Fountain and then just cross the street.

— Come in a few minutes early to get oriented so you know where you are going and you are not late for roll call!

— There will be signage and maps and many staff on hand to help direct you.

— If you have any items in the ASHO student closets such as personal packs, materials, books, e-meters, etc. come in before 10 pm on Thursday evening to pick them up as anything left will be disposed of or donated.

The spaces will be fully emptied for the Ideal Org construction crew coming in right after that! This is a unique once-in-a-lifetime chance to come for FULL-TIME intensive service through November and December. The historic Fountain Avenue side of our base was the original “grand entrance” of the Cedars Complex and is where ASHO will reside for the few months that our home is being renovated. It will be appropriately decorated for the holidays and we will be in full-swing operation moving YOU up the Bridge! If you are not currently enrolled, make your reservations to come in and start NOW, your chair and Supervisor are ready!

ARC, The ASHO Day and Foundation delivery team

 
Don’t you wish you were “Full OT”?

 
Also going on this weekend — the Jive Aces! Scientologists can’t get enough of them, apparently.

 
And finally, we’ll share with you this photograph that came to us from one of our South African readers, who noticed that a sign for Dianetics had popped up on a local highway. (Note the newspaper headlines on placards below it.)

Our reader later sent this second photo of those newspaper placards after, um, taking matters into their own hands…

Scandalous!

Once again, we want to thank our excellent tipsters for another week of good stuff. Keep it coming!

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