When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Joyce McKinney grew up in small town North Carolina. She's smart. She's a former Miss Wyoming. When she moved to Utah, she falls for Kirk Anderson and becomes obsessed with him. He's a Mormon which Joyce considers a cult. She claims that the Mormon church had abducted her fiancé Kirk and sent to England. She, accomplices Keith Joseph May and Gil Parker hire pilot Jackson Shaw to fly to England to rescue Kirk Anderson. Gil and Jackson back out but Joyce and Keith abduct Kirk for three days of sex and fun. They go back to London to get marry. Kirk reads about his own kidnapping. He leaves Joyce and tells the police about the kidnapping. In 1977, he becomes the Manacled Mormon and tabloid fodder after Joyce is charged with abducting and imprisoning Kirk.It's too strange to be true. Director Errol Morris has his classic off-camera voice asking the questions. It's a fascinating true story that the tabloids rightly printed. A couple of things do hold it back slightly. In the end, this is a small story and it's hard to dig deeper than what Joyce allows us to know. This movie needs to have Kirk because he's the only person to counter what she's saying. Is she crazy or is she in love? That's the central question. Maybe she's a bit of both. The story is funny and insane but it's essentially a light weight story.

There's a theory that acting (playing out a role) is something everyone does all the time, and that the artifice is essentially a streamlined version of living. For an actor on stage with a ready script in hand there are clear definitions outlined for his actions, but for regular people who are proceeding with some internally generated script, goals and motivation can seem fuzzy.Joyce McKinney may seem like a lost loony under the inspection of Errol Morris's camera and interviewing skills, but she comes off as someone completely in control of her emotions and someone capable of justifying all of her actions. This woman is speaking years after her incarceration in Great Britain for the kidnapping and sexual violation of Mormon Kirk Anderson and the sense of joy she exudes in accomplishing her task is something the viewer may be surprised at.Joyce McKinney, beauty pageant queen from a wealthy family who moved to Utah met and fell in love with Mormon Kirk Anderson and decided that their love was a divine fate. When Anderson was called by the church to travel to England to minister to the folks there, McKinney followed with bodyguards. Funding her mission with surreptitious money McKinney lured Anderson away to a remote location chained him to a bed and had sex with him for 3 days. McKinney's intention was to seduce Anderson away from the stifling atmosphere of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and restore their union as a couple. The British law saw McKinney's act as one of kidnapping and rape, took her into custody and tried her.Some interesting facts about the woman arise, like her activities as a nude model for top dollar in Britain, and further, her sex-phone franchise that brought in money to fund her stalking and detaining of Anderson. To look at the woman from twenty years back, she is capable of turning heads and certainly capable of earning professional fees as a model, with and without her clothes.What filmmaker Errol Morris uncovers is the "something" about McKinney that makes her stand out, that special light she seems to stand in. What Tabloid shows is articulate, extroverted, and manipulative and not only is confident in her present status as cultural iconic kook, but her acceptance of it and how she understands its power as her ticket to celebrity star.Errol Morris additionally refuses to add any editorializing to structure some sort of rationale or judgment on his subject. What he does well is bring forth others who have know McKinney and allow their comments to create a visual background to the world McKinney inhabited, and today lives in while still crating weird controversy.It would have been great if Kirk Anderson, the Mormon whom McKinney claims shared true love with, allowed himself to be interviewed for the film. Having that side of the story could have given the viewer some real substantial core truths to go away with. Regardless, Tabloid is a fascinating tale, made more shocking because it really happened.

This is the eighth documentary I have seen by Errol Morris. His "Gates of Heaven" is my favorite, while this one is eighth on my list. The story is that of Joyce McKinney, once a Wyoming beauty queen, who (she claims) fell obsessively in love with a young Mormon man named Kirk Anderson. She was later charged with kidnapping this man and forcing him to have sex.I can see where this might appeal to Morris; after I had seen all his interviews with McKinney, a couple of news reporters with differing views, an airline pilot, and a Salt Lake City radio host I was left with no clear idea of exactly what happened. Oddly, documenting materials from one of the newspapers disappeared and the documentation in McKinney's possession was supposedly stolen. Another person who was closely involved in the escapade was Keith May, who had since died.Most of the movie is taken up with Miss McKinney talking at us. The only thing I found to be true for sure is that she is a real space cadet. She admits to having had acting experience and you don't know whether to believe a word she says. She claims to have an IQ of 167, but I saw no evidence that she was above average in intelligence (in fact I would think the contrary). Some of the clips used to illustrate the dialog were pretty silly, like some stock footage of a guy ripping a phone off the wall when one of the interviewees was talking about a phone cord having been pulled out. And I found the cutesy little cartoons particularly lame. Also, I was never sure whether I was seeing original footage or reenactments. For example, Kirk Anderson was described as being a very large man, but the clips we see of him show him to be of fairly normal weight.The biggest weakness I found was that neither Kirk Anderson not Kieth May was interviewed (Anderson declined and May was dead). So, we never got the story from the only other people closely involved. I like stories that leave some ambiguity as to what happened, but stories like this where you don't have enough information to make an informed speculation are not satisfying.

Errol Morris hits a home run with "Tabloid," letting the main subject, Joyce McKinney, pontificate for long stretches at a time; and Ms. McKinney never disappoints. This is a sad and compelling news story from 1977, well known in Britain as "The Manacled Mormon" case. An American Mormon missionary claimed to be abducted and raped by Ms. McKinney and what follows is a tragic but often funny documentary that is truly stranger than fiction. I can't find better adjectives(used by someone interviewed) than barking mad to describe this delusional, obsessed, and sorry figure.The missing element is Kirk Anderson, the alleged victim and abductee, as he refused to be interviewed. Director Morris has a field day with Mormon beliefs, from magic underwear to planets ruled by deceased true believers. The Salt Lake City elders will not be pleased with this film. I highly recommend it to everyone else.