SummaryThirty years before the antics of Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears were regular gossip fodder, Miss Wyoming Joyce McKinney made her mark as a tabloid staple ne plus ultra. Morris follows the salacious adventures of this beauty queen with an IQ of 168 whose single-minded devotion to the man of her dreams leads her across the globe, into jail, and ... Read More
Directed By:Errol Morris
Tabloid
Metascore
Generally Favorable
74
User score
Generally Favorable
6.5
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Metascore
Generally Favorable
74
85% Positive
29 Reviews
29 Reviews
15% Mixed
5 Reviews
5 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Jul 14, 2011
100
It is a spellbinding enigma, and one of the damnedest films Morris has ever made.
Jul 14, 2011
88
McKinney, a woman whose spellbinding and baffling presence - nay, performance - in Tabloid more than lives up to her recent off-screen antics.
User score
Generally Favorable
6.5
59% Positive
10 Ratings
10 Ratings
29% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
12% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Jul 24, 2011
8
I'm not sure all the little comics and clips of old movies and moving cars and airplanes were necessary, but Joyce and her story and the "supporting characters" are all a hoot (and perfect fodder for an Errol Morris movie); and Morris's tongue-in-cheek admiration of her strikes pretty much the right balance. (See the You Tube video of the interaction between the two [and the Booger clone] at DOC NYC for a continuation of that "interaction.") The phrase "truth is stranger than fiction" comes up in a lot of reviews and is perfectly appropriate here, as is the title "Tabloid," which is obviously very timely and ties all the incredible parts/episodes of the movie together. Ironically, the same week that I saw the movie, I also watched Piers Morgan's interview of Nancy Grace on CNN; and I couldn't help seeing the similarity between the two in terms of the fine line between truth and shameless self-promotion/self-delusion(though Joyce was a lot more entertaining). Do you think Joyce will get her own TV show on Bravo?
May 21, 2016
7
-Tabloid is a 2010 American documentary film directed by Errol Morris. It tells the story of Joyce McKinney, who in 1977 was accused of kidnapping and **** Kirk Anderson, an American Mormon missionary. The incident, known as the Mormon sex in chains case, became a major tabloid story in the United Kingdom and triggered a circulation battle between two popular tabloid newspapers, the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express. -The film is based on interviews of McKinney, journalist Peter Tory (1939-2012), and photographer Kent Gavin conducted by Morris. The film makes reference to Mormon culture, such as temple garments. --Legal action against Morris: -In November 2011, Joyce McKinney filed a lawsuit with the Los Angeles Superior Court against Errol Morris, claiming that Morris and his producer Mark Lipson told her they were filming for a TV documentary series about the paparazzi. McKinney is suing on the grounds that she was defamed, as the film portrays her as "crazy, a sex offender, an S&M prostitute, and/or a rapist."
Jul 14, 2011
80
Morris's trademark device of superimposing giant type over his talking heads - Willing! Manacled Mormon! - often made me wonder if Morris were exposing the world of tabloid journalism or participating in it.
Jul 14, 2011
70
Errol Morris's documentary was made, and scheduled for release, long before the News of the World story broke. The smart part is that the film dissects those excesses deftly with a quasitabloid style of its own.
Aug 4, 2011
67
Lots of people have crazy stuff happen to them once or twice. Some people are magnets for crazy stuff. And then there's Joyce McKinney, who is like a factory where magnets for crazy stuff are made and warehoused.
Jul 15, 2011
50
The documentary Tabloid shows that an oddball lead character and a smirky style do not necessarily add up to a complete movie.
Dec 23, 2012
5
A sophomoric effort that squandered a decent story line and resulted in a movie that is at times painful to sit through. It felt as though I was sitting through something produced in a college film class.
Jul 31, 2011
1
We did not like it. It may have been well done and well rated but it was not for us. My wife fell asleep and I could not stop checking my watch. After about 30 minutes, I woke her up and asked her if she was enjoying the movie. She was not. We left.
Production Company:
- Air Loom Enterprises
- Moxie Pictures
Release Date:Jul 15, 2011
Duration:1 h 28 m
Rating:R
Awards
Cinema Eye Honors Awards, US
• 2 Wins & 3 Nominations
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
Detroit Film Critics Society Awards
• 1 Win & 1 Nomination
