Full disclosure: I know the director and count him as a good friend. I am not what you'd call a movie buff, and don't sit around thinking deep thoughts about character development or lighting. I gave it a nine because tens don't exist.I went to the premier of this film in San Jose (perhaps Cupertino...but that only matters if you know where Cupertino is, and the people in Cupertino don't even know). I will tell all of you what I told Phil Lierness: I didn't stop thinking about the film for at least 24 hrs after seeing it. It was very thought provoking, challenging and it did indeed surprise me. My reaction to the people was wholly unexpected...much more accepting and a lot less dismissive than I thought. A good night, watching both the film and the subsequent podcast with Dean and Phil (who have an amazing rapport), and some lessons well learned.And that's all I got to say about that.

This is an interesting film by an accomplished film maker (Phil Leirness). I enjoyed the film even though i had little interest in Dean Haglund. The first half of the film is more focused on the chaotic nature of Dean's life and the interest of his fans. As the film develops more time is given to the deeper concepts such as: Why do some people feel the need to dis-trust government so much? Whats important in life?Also, the film considers questions like: Do some people behave in such a way because they have empty lives? When they get to the "answer" to their "question" will they feel better?I found the questions and answers the film looked to answer and found to be helpful, and am happy that film makers have the time to make films that are able to question issues such as these. At the end of the film i came to the conclusion (mostly thanks to the scenes of Dean's brother-in-law and sister) that life is short and the smaller we keep our view of the world the more likely our lives are to be happy. Complicating our lives with things we have no chance of changing or understanding only makes us unhappy.

This documentary is an interesting story following Dean Haglund and filmmaker Phil Leirness as they journey through the world of UFO conventions and conspiracy theories. I was lucky enough to attend the Premiere in London, as part of the SCI-FI-London Film Festival (2011).As some have already mentioned it isn't a definitive guide to the conspiracy theories at large, I don't think it is meant to be, there are just too many of them. The movie however shows a more "relaxed" side to a diversity of people who have strong beliefs in what they see as their own truth and as the documentary unfolds, we see Dean's own journey progress with each encounter. With interviews from interesting people from all over the globe, it's warm, funny and scary at times. I like the way the movie seems to stay in neutral territory and allow the interviews to take on a life of their own, giving the individuals their own space to express themselves. With so many different, passionate stories, its hard not to be entertained and appreciate this piece of work.

I saw this documentary at the BFI in London a few days ago and have to say it is a curious film. Initially I had been led to believe that it was an investigation by Dean Haglund into conspiracy theories and their generation and popularity, however, in retrospect it is something quite different. It meanders and weaves and doesn't succeed in coming to any meaningful point. One thing that I struggled with through the entire film is that nobody is put into context, and in fact there is also no attempt to analyse different types of conspiracy theory or to explain why they remain an ever present part of popular culture. Instead we have Dean Haglund interviewing a variety of individuals, and this really means a very passive form of interviewing - he lets each protagonist have their say and is open minded and not challenging in any way to the things that are said. We also see, inter-cut, a therapy session for Dean Haglund that seems to culminate in the observation that everyone has their own truth and world view. It would have been a great point to have cut to the various interviewees to ask them : Why do you think the way you do and when did you begin to think like this? The film feels too long - it's well over 2 hours and there seem to be some completely irrelevant scenes - we see Dean talking to his nephew and his brother about their travel plans and homelife, and also that Dean Haglund has invented a laptop cooling system...not that interesting and in fact not helpful to the narrative at all. There are also some really strange issues with the score, which sometimes gets really loud, and in fact during one interview with a particularly passionate radio host convinced me that the film was about to end...but it didn't. Normally I would have expected some hypothesis to have been tested, or for some revelations and illustrations to provide some framework to have educated the audience by the end of the film but this just didn't happen. I am not joking when one audience member fell asleep and began to snore during this showing! To be fair there are a handful of laughs during the film but it is not especially humorous, nor intelligently handled so one is left wondering just what the filmmakers were trying to achieve. Overall I feel this documentary is a mish mash of unrelated scenes that has little to add to the subject area. Dean Haglund seems a fairly pleasant guy but you don't need a 2 hours plus documentary to tell you that.