Doc A Day # 2 : Tabloid/Errol Morris (2010)

I promise I'll get caught up....one a day...one a day... I could just say that the main subject of Tabloid,Joyce McKinney, at one point claims her small dog named Booger has made a Christ like sacrifice, and be done. Really that statement in a nutshell is all you need to know. Tabloid, depending on who you believe, is one or more stories that may or may not be true, that involve plenty of sex, Mormons, possible kidnapping, and British journalists who are giddy at the sleaziness of the whole affair.It is a Coen Brothers movie waiting to happen. McKinney is , of course, a polite Southern beauty queen madly in love with a man who , according to her, is brainwashed by the Mormons and whisked away from her to England. She manages to charm a couple of guys into bodyguarding/piloting her to England to rescue her Prince. According to McKinney, they manage to save him from his brainwashing the only way she knows how : she straps him to a bed and bangs the Mormon out of him. Upon his "escape" McKinney becomes tabloid popular and England is enthralled by the details as she prepares to be put on trial. Until, and I could not make this up, she jumps bail and escapes in disguise through the airport posing as a deaf mute..... The Tabloid press however, unearths S&M lite nude pictures from McKinney's past and all may not be as it seems. Its hinted at more than once that McKinney is either crazy obsessed, a kidnapper who chained a man to her bed and raped him , and/or a prostitute. Morris, as always, lets his subject tell their stories. False , sleazy, good and bad, its all entertaining, simply because other than some old news footage and tabloid clips, Morris never lets anything get in his way of these folks simply talking. Morris can even be heard laughing along in a "can you believe this?" manner during interviews, just as you will when watching. It is this simple step of Morris', don't get in the way of the subject telling their tale, that is as genius as a sweeping Scorsese crane shot. Despite the fact that McKinney probably did become obsessed, tracking a man across the world, and despite the fact that the Mormon (Kirk Anderson, who is never interviewed, and presumed to be living a quite life), probably ran off with Mckinney, had some fun and regreted it, thus the "kidnapping tale", neither comes off as bad as the British tabloid press. Still to this day they delight in the naked pictures they "found", chuckle at McKinney enjoying her brief fame then being crushed by it. These are grown men who are just giggling schoolboys with a dirty magazine in the end. Every part of the tale probably has some truth to it, but we'll never know everything I'm sure. which is Morris's point. Just like the Tabloids, there is some truth in the salcious details, and we all feel a bit dirty for knowing it. Tabloid is available via streaming and well worth the watch. Oh, and Booger the dog gets cloned.....