The last time a past Secretary of Defense sat down for an interview with Errol Morris, the documentarian earned himself an Oscar. 2003′s The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara featured Morris’ breakdown of the man who presided over the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. Now, having been able to sit down with the second-longest tenured Secretary of Defense (McNamara himself being the first), Morris is looking to replicate his award-winning documentary by focusing on Donald Rumsfeld. Not shying away from such sensitive topics as the torture of suspected terrorists at Abu Ghraib prison in his 2008 work, Standard Operating Procedure, Morris will surely delve into the incidents which occurred under Rumsfeld’s reign. What’s less clear is how history will remember Rumsfeld, whether as Nixon’s “anti-poverty czar,” a proponent for governmental transparency or just another bungler in the Dubya administration. Undoubtedly, Morris’s work will have some impact on the perceived legacy of Donald Rumsfeld when it’s released later this year. Hit the jump for more on this project.

Last July, we reported that Paul Rudd would star in Errol Morris‘ non-documentary feature based on the memoir We Froze the First Man and a This American Life story about Bob Nelson, a California TV repairman who was obsessed with cryogenically freezing humans in order to resurrect them later in the future.  Deadline now reports that Owen Wilson and Christopher Walken are set to co-star, and Kristen Wiig may join the film, which has been titled Freezing People Is Easy, but she first has to wrap her season on Saturday Night Live and she’s also considering other offers.

Zach Helm (Stranger Than Fiction) wrote the script and the production is eyeing a mid-2012 start date.  It sounds like a fun premise, I’m eager to see what Morris brings to the project, and I dig the cast that’s being lined up to star.  Click here to go listen to the This American Life episode about Nelson, “Mistakes Were Made”.

Tabloid is the latest chapter in Errol Morris’ career long documentary ode to American eccentricity. His talent lies in finding remarkably odd and unique people and gently prodding them until they reveal life stories that would almost be too surreal to believe as fiction. Tabloid might not have the political significance of say Morris’ Oscar-winning Robert McNamara profile Fog Of War, but it just might be his most intriguing story to date. It’s a film that involves alleged Mormon rape, tabloid scandal, BSDM, mime border crossing, dog cloning, and a three-legged horse. In short, it’s got everything you need for a giddy night at the movies. The fact that it all happened to the same woman Joyce McKinney just makes the material that much more intriguing. Morris has never found a more fascinating subject than McKinney and through her quietly created one of his best films. Hit the jump for more.

Paul Rudd is set to star in a new feature film from noted documentarian Errol Morris (The Thin Blue Line). The non-documentary feature is based on a story from “This American Life” about Bob Nelson, a California TV-repairman who decided that his obsession with cryogenically freezing humans in order to resurrect them later in the future needed to become a reality. The material seems pretty spot-on for Rudd’s comedic sensibilities.

The Washington Post confirms Rudd’s casting, and Stranger Than Fiction screenwriter Zach Helm will pen the screenplay. Morris is apparently collaborating with “This American Life” host Ira Glass on the project. The director previously helmed the 1991 non-documentary film The Dark Wind, and most recently released his documentary Tabloid. His 2004 doc The Fog of War (which is a must-see) won the Best Documentary Feature Oscar.

The trailer for Errol Morris’ latest documentary, Tabloid, has gone online.  Morris has covered eccentric figures before, but he may have found his strangest yet in tabloid sensation Joyce McKinney.  Here’s the synopsis:

Thirty years before the antics of Lindsay, Paris and Britney, Joyce McKinney made her mark as a peerless tabloid queen. In TABLOID, Academy Award(R)-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (THE FOG OF WAR) 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 on a labyrinthine crusade for love. Down a surreal rabbit hole of kidnapping, masochistic Mormons, risque photography, magic underwear, celestial sex, jail time and a cloning laboratory in South Korea, Joyce’s fantastic exploits were constant headlines.

Today’s celebrities with their mundane drug habits and nip-slips can’t hold a candle to this.  Check out the trailer and the poster after the jump.  Tabloid opens July 15th.

Sundance Selects has picked up North American distribution rights to Oscar-winner Errol Morris’ (The Fog of War) latest documentary, Tabloid.  The follow up to 2008′s Standard Operating Procedure, Tabloid centers on “The Case of the Manacled Mormon” in which a former Miss Wyoming flew to England in 1977 in hopes of saving the love of her life from a cult.  In the press release, Morris describes the film as such:

“It’s a return to my favorite genre – sick, sad and funny – but of course, it’s more than that.  It is a meditation on how we are shaped by the media and even more powerfully, by ourselves.”

To check out the full press release, which includes a little more from Morris, hit the jump.  Sundance plans to screen the film at “key film festivals” prior to releasing Tabloid to theaters and their on-demand platform later this summer.

The line-up for the 2010 Telluride Film Festival has been announced and there are some exciting inclusions.  If I were attending Telluride, the two films at the top of my must-see list would be Errol Morris’ new documentary Tabloid which is about former-Miss Wyoming/convicted rapist/dog-cloning advocate Joyce McKinney, and Peter Weir’s war film The Way Back, which is the director’s first film since 2003′s Master and Commander.

The line-up also includes other films that are making the festival rounds including Mark Romanek’s Never Let Me Go, the financial-collapse documentary Inside Job, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist, Mike Leigh’s Another Year, and Stephen Frears’ Tamara Drewe.  Hit the jump to check out the full line-up.  The Telluride Film Festival runs from September 3 – 6th.