92% Tabloid

All Critics (99) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (91) | Rotten (8)

In Joyce McKinney, Morris has found a fittingly weird and funny muse.

Errol Morris is a genius, a gifted documentarian who has made better movies than "Tabloid," but none so entertaining.

Though the events Tabloid recounts took place in the pre-digital age, the film also functions as a kind of prehistory of modern celebrity culture and tabloid journalism.

Morris's subject is sexual fantasy and a particular kind of American stupidity-the ability to substitute self-justification for self-knowledge. His tone is merry.

It is quite simply one of the craziest stories ever told, made all the crazier by the fact that it's true. Or at least some version of it is true.

Tabloid, Errol Morris' latest wild and woolly portrait of human self-delusion, is a scandal-sheet dream come to life.

Tabloid is such a mirthful, fascinating and fantastically entertaining documentary that you can't help but get caught up in all the sordid fun

McKinney is mesmerizing: the vain, expressive, motormouthed star of an elaborately structured drama of self that qualifies as one of the more astonishing first-person cinematic tours de force since 'Eddie Murphy Raw.'

...fairly lightweight. But it's nevertheless one of the most entertaining movies that will hit theaters this year.

A lot of fun; Morris himself is clearly unconvinced about Joyce -- and no wonder -- but she's a funny woman and hers is a ripping yarn if ever there was one.

Expertly guided by Errol Morris, and featuring a wholly compelling subject, this is a fascinating exploration of truth and memory.

Errol Morris hits the doco jackpot with a story that is both resoundingly human and resoundingly ironic about an ex beauty queen with a shady past who falls in love with Kirk Anderson, a young man whose strict religion forbids sex

A scandal involving a beauty queen, sex-in-chains, a religious cult, kidnapping and the tabloids are the ingredients of this bizarre true story that gets more fantastic as it goes along

Tabloid is a documentary that proves conclusively that the truth really is stranger than fiction.

Any film that elicits wide-eyed comments like, "What a story!" afterward is inherently successful.

On first look, Errol Morris' documentary appears to tell McKinney's story, drawing from the story reported by British tabloids in 1977. But it's also about truth and storytelling more broadly, the ways stories escape their tellers.

If "Tabloid" feels like a minor Morris work compared to "The Fog of War" or "Mr. Death," it is still entertaining, with a sly sense of humor and an empathetic eye for the bizarre that harkens back to earlier movies like "Gates of Heaven."

You may see -- and perhaps already have seen -- better documentaries this year than Errol Morris' Tabloid, but I doubt you'll see a more entertaining one.

Tabloid is a nice commentary on [Errol Morris'] particular style of 'truth-telling' and objectivity. In the end, we're all lying simply by telling our version of the truth.

Morris has found a real character in McKinney, but to what end, I couldn't say.

"Tabloid" is tantalizing, but like yesterday's headlines, it's a fleeting flirtation.

It's a titillating yarn told with verve, but it doesn't shed much light on how tabloids create and encourage such stories, nor does it, finally, tell us much about human nature -- other than, perhaps, to illustrate an extreme case of it.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/tabloid_2010/

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