Scientologists take a lot of crap, probably because they’ve dedicated their lives to a crazy story about alien spirits a science fiction writer made up to scam rich people. But what no one wants to talk about, is that if you pay L. Ron Hubbard enough money, you can heal the sick the sick with mind bullets like that dude from The Green Mile. Something like that. Anyway, that’s what John Travolta used to help a man with a broken ankle in Shanghai recently, this according to Scientology’s official paper.

The Saturday Night Fever star, who has been studying Scientology since 1975, spoke about the incident in the controversial religion’s latest edition of their publication, Celebrity Magazine.
“I was in Shanghai recently at a work event and the Master of Ceremonies’ best friend had recently gotten into a car wreck. He had broken his ankle and was in constant pain.”
“I asked him permission to do some Scientology assists and he said, ‘Okay sure’.
“People were standing around watching as I did them. You could actually see him confronting the pain and after a while he looked up at me and said ‘I feel better’ so I said ‘Okay end of assist.’
“He had gotten noticeably better and I was chomping at the bit for more.” [Celebuzz]

“He BLINDED me with SCIENCE!” added the man, boogieing down the street on his once-broken ankle.

Sometimes I pretend to be a powerful Scientologist, and I head down to the ICU at the local hospital, and I ask patients if I can do a Scientology assist. And then when they agree, I pull out my wiener and say, “here, hold onto the e-meter!” and everyone has a good laugh. Teaching patients to laugh again is the hardest part about treating a terminal illness.

Meanwhile, following his latest assist, Travolta is only 57 behind all-time assist leader John Stockton. Though some say Karl Malone was just carrying him all those years.

[banner pic is from John Travolta's Christmas album. Yes, this year's Christmas album.]

Vanity Fair is still milking the Tom Cruise/Katie Holmes divorce for all the ink it’s worth, and recently put online their epic, 8,000-word piece on a woman who was once chosen as Tom Cruise’s next girlfriend, made to break up with her fiancee, and generally shuffled around the world and made to do weird sh*t by an army of Xenu-fearing acolytes. Sample excerpt:

Tom Cruise was in a state because he didn’t have a girl. “Can you believe my sister can’t even get me a girlfriend?” he said to David Miscavige, the chief of the Church of Scientology International, as Miscavige joined him and Cruise’s sister Lee Anne DeVette at the opening of the Madrid Scientology center, in September 2004. Miscavige, according to Rinder and Marty Rathbun, Scientology’s former inspector general and No. 2, prided himself on being able to produce with a snap of his fingers anything Cruise desired, as well as to remove whatever he considered to be obstacles in the star’s life, such as his last wife, Nicole Kidman, and his last girlfriend, Penélope Cruz.

I’m an only child so I don’t know these things, but is that really what sisters are supposed to do? Get you girlfriends? Anyway, I could read about weirdo Scientologists all day, but for our purposes here, even more entertaining than the story were the hilariously hard-boiled film noir Photoshops VF uses to accompany the story, which seem to have been created by a failed movie poster designer.

Floating heads inside a silhouette, uh oh, sh*t’s gettin real!

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Last we heard about Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, Anderson had already shown the film to Lord Xenu’s greatest living enemy Tom Cruise and gotten his blessing. But Scientology is nothing if not a cult of insane weirdos, and it turns out they aren’t all okay with it. Apparently The Weinstein Company (who’s distributing the film) have been getting harassed and receiving weird phone calls, prompting Harvey Weinstein to hire additional security guards.

Even though Anderson and star Philip Seymour Hoffman insist in interviews their film isn’t about the controversial religion, sources say Scientologists have been “inundating” the distributor, The Weinstein Co., with strange calls objecting to the film and are concocting plans to combat it when the film is released this week. “The Master” stars Hoffman as an enigmatic church leader and Joaquin Phoenix as an early disciple.

Sources tell Page Six that Scientology is countering the film’s marketing by running its own ads promoting its message in places where ads and stories about “The Master” appear.

Calls and mail from people believed to be Scientologists to Weinstein’s office have grown numerous enough that some on the film’s team have hired extra security, a source said. Weinstein had already been under close guard following a recent attempt to blackmail him by a man unrelated to the film. [NY Post]

Oooh, calls and mail, scary! Yeah, this one smacks of publicity stunt to me. A lot of us were hoping for some controversy between The Master and the notoriously litigious Church of Scientology, and maybe after that disappointing story about Cruise saying he was cool with the film, Weinstein is trying to provide it. I have a hard time believing Harvey Weinstein is scared of a few phone calls. I’ve heard Harvey Weinstein can choke you through the phone using only his mind, and when you wake up, all the money in your wallet is gone. He swallows rotisserie chickens whole and spits out the bones in baseball-sized pellets. Nothing scares that guy, he’s like Darth Vader and Jabba the Hutt combined, with more body hair.

As if my anticipation boner for Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master couldn’t get any more turgid and veiny, MovieClips just added this new clip to promote tonight’s 70 mm showing in Austin. The clip features Joaquin Phoenix as his character, Freddie, taking the old Rorschach test. And Freddie? Well, you might say old Freddie has a bit of a “one-track mind.” Here’s how he describes the ink blots:

“That’s a pussy.”

“That’s the part between the assh*le and the pussy.”

“That’s two ladies facing each other. With tits hanging down. And it looks like… there’s come dripping off of them.”

“That’s two women again. They’re holding their hands together. It looks like they’re covered in come.”

“This is a pussy. And an assh*le, the assh*le’s open.”

“Two women, touching each other’s pussies. You can actually see the pussies touching, right here.”

Well, you can’t spell Rorchach without “chach.” The Master was famously inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, but according to Paul Thomas Anderson, Tom Cruise has reportedly seen the film and given it his blessing. Maybe this clip is a clue as to why. “Haha, you got me, Paul!” I imagine Tom Cruise saying, “That’s classic me! Always thinkin’ about the ol’ ‘poontang’, ha ha ha!” he probably said, laughing nervously and making quotes in the air with his fingers.

Aww!

Philip Seymour Hoffman was a bit coy when asked whether he plays L. Ron Hubbard in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master, saying, “It’s not the L. Ron Hubbard story… there were a lot of movements at that time.” At the time, we all assumed that was just something one says when dealing with the notoriously litigious and deep-pocketed Church of Scientology, because multiple trailers (which were apparently cut by Anderson himself, no wonder they’re so good) contained basically verbatim quotes from Hubbard and Scientology questionnaires. And now Anderson admits what we basically all knew anyway:

Director Paul Thomas Anderson said it’s no secret that the central character in “The Master” was inspired by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
The highly-anticipated film, which premiered Saturday at the Venice Film Festival, stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a charismatic spiritual leader who captivates Joaquin Phoenix’s troubled World War II veteran.
Anderson said he views a love story between two men.
Anderson said the fact that Hoffman’s character was inspired by Hubbard “is not an elephant in the room.” He says he has shown the film to Tom Cruise, who starred in Anderson’s 1999 film “Magnolia” and whose Scientology beliefs are well-documented.
“We are still friends. I showed him the film, and the rest is between us,” Anderson said. [AP]

In perhaps the easiest joke in the history of easy jokes, Cruise said he objected to the negative portrayal of Scientology, but couldn’t resist a love story between two men.

But on a serious note, I’m kind of bummed that the film goes so easy on Scientology that not even Tom Cruise objects to it. On a less serious note, I think a good pick-up line for a chick outside the Scientology Center would be to tell her that if she wants a free personality test all she has to do is hold onto the e-meter, and then point at your dick.