Tabloid

Theatrical Release Date: 2011 07 15 (USA - Limited)

UPC: 030306979397

Studio: IFC

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Nudity, Sexual Situations]

Summary: Award-winning documentary filmmaker Errol Morris spins a remarkable true-life story of love, sex, obsession, abduction, religion, and scandal. Joyce McKinney was a beauty pageant winner in her teens who moved from the Midwest to Utah and fell in love with Kirk Anderson, a handsome man who also happened to be a Mormon. Like many Mormons, Anderson was called upon by the Church of Latter-Day Saints to go on a mission to spread the word about his faith; Anderson was sent to England, and McKinney was heartbroken about losing her man. So McKinney took matters into her own hands -- she flew to England, snatched Anderson from an LDS meeting house in London, and spirited him away to a remote cabin where, after chaining him to a bed, she attempted to seduce him away from the church. McKinney saw this as an act of love and rescue, while Anderson's lawyers described it as kidnapping and rape, and when the matter went before the British courts, the tabloid media in the U.K. ran wild with the story. In Tabloid, Morris allows McKinney to tell her side of this truly remarkable story, as well as sharing some incredible tales of her life before and after what became known as "The Case of the Manacled Mormon." Tabloid received its world premiere at the 2010 Telluride Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Category: Culture & Society

Awards: Film Presented – Toronto International Film Festival Film Presented – London Film Festival Film Presented – SXSW Best Documentary – San Francisco Film Critics Circle Best Documentary – Detroit Film Critics Society

Tabloid

Format: DVD

Release Date: 11/01/2011

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1

Runtime: 88 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English

Subtitles: English,Spanish

Region: USA & territories, Canada

Chapters: Disc #1 -- Tabloid
1. Opening Credits [:07]
2. Small Town Girl [7:07]
3. Trip to England [7:35]
4. Inside the love cottage [8:02]
5. Ascend Together [6:42]
6. Holloway Prison [7:17]
7. Pink Carnations [7:17]
8. Betraying Her [8:40]
9. Freaked Out [1:41]
10. Incurable Romantic [7:18]
11. Cloning [5:54]
12. Ending Credits [7:27]

Perry Seibert

Among the many aspects of Errol Morris' talent that make him an elite documentary filmmaker is that he finds true stories that aren't just interesting, but are full of colorful people whom he then gets to open up on camera. Vernon, Florida, Fast, Cheap & Out of Control, and The Fog of War are all quirky examinations of various profound themes and telling psychological sketches of the people who agree to be interviewed on camera. Tabloid stands alongside his best work for this very reason. The story of beauty queen Joyce McKinney exemplifies the old saying that truth is stranger than fiction. The one-time Miss Wyoming, who claims to have an IQ of 168, became the tabloid sensation of England in 1977 thanks to her being the central figure in a lurid scandal involving sex, kidnapping, religion, and obsession. She traveled to London with a couple of bodyguards and a pilot hoping to get her Mormon boyfriend away from the church, and ended up facing kidnapping charges, as well as having numerous kinky elements of her sex life surface in the press. If you've never heard of Joyce McKinney before, do yourself a favor and don't go looking her up before seeing this movie -- and do go see the movie, because it's hard to imagine a more entertaining true-crime tale. McKinney sits for extensive interviews with Morris, and she is a fascinating individual -- articulate, extroverted, and manipulative. In fact, she lays out the theme of the movie late in the film when she states her belief that if you tell a lie for long enough, people will eventually believe it. What she doesn't seem to realize is that the same is true of the person telling the lie -- you can manipulate yourself by insisting on the same story. Tabloid isn't about scandals or gossip, it's about the manipulation that Joyce describes. From the pilot who, decades later, still gets turned on by the memory of Joyce's youthful figure and outgoing demeanor, to the tabloid reporter who uncovers juicy secrets in her past, to the central figure herself, everybody in this movie is convinced that his or her point-of-view should be everyone's. As Morris slowly reveals more and more about the various stages of Joyce's life -- including a second run-in with unwanted fame -- it dawns on us that truth doesn't matter much at all. It's the storytellers and their stories that fascinate us. Morris not only examines our attraction to the kind of scandal-sheet journalism that people are quick to get all morally righteous about, he also satisfies -- without judging us -- our desire for sensationalism by simultaneously giving us a ceaselessly entertaining portrait of the confounding, fascinating, and quite possibly unknowable Joyce McKinney. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Errol Morris  Director 
Errol Morris  Executive Producer 
Mark Lipson  Producer 
John Kusiak  Composer (Music Score) 
Julie Bilson Ahlberg  Producer 
Angus Wall  Executive Producer 
Robert Fernandez  Executive Producer 
Joyce McKinney  Actor 
Jackson Shaw  Actor 
Peter Tory  Actor 
Troy Williams  Actor 
Kent Gavin  Actor 
Jin Han Hong  Actor 

Country: USA