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Tabloid
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Metascore
74 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 34 Critics What's this?

User Score
6.6 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 7 Ratings

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10 out of 10
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  • Summary: Thirty 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 onto the front page. Joyce’s labyrinthine crusade for love takes her through a surreal world of kidnapping, manacled Mormons, risqué photography, magic underwear, and celestial sex—until her dream is finally realized in a cloning laboratory in Seoul, South Korea. (Sundance Selects)… Expand

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 34
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 34
  3. Negative: 0 out of 34
  1. Chicago Sun-Times
    Reviewed by: Roger Ebert
    Jul 14, 2011
    100
    It is a spellbinding enigma, and one of the damnedest films Morris has ever made.
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    Reviewed by: Owen Gleiberman
    Jul 13, 2011
    100
    At 88 minutes, Tabloid is short and sweet (it's pure movie candy), but by the end we've forged an emotional connection to Joyce McKinney at the deep core of her unapologetic fearless/nutty valor. And that's what really makes a great tabloid story: It's a vortex that's also a mirror.
  3. Empire
    Reviewed by: Patrick Peters
    Nov 7, 2011
    60
    A compelling story told with Morris's usually flair. Still, hard not to think of it as a disappointment by the director's exalted standards and a missed opportunity to explore society's dysfunctional relationship with its media.

See all 34 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. metamotivcritic
    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?… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. BonPapa
    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.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes

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