This unusual level of directorial familiarity leads to numerous extended segments about the band members’ personal lives that are both humorous (Coyne recalling his decade-long run as the head fry cook at a Long John Silver’s) and unsettling (the scene in which multi-instrumentalist Steven Drozd talks frankly about his then raging heroin addiction while shooting up on camera).

Although admittedly overlong at 98 minutes, it’s hard to say where the cuts should have been made. The film’s subplots, which in some ways seem most extraneous to telling the story of the band, also frequently boast the most entertaining footage. A prime example of this is the extended segment on the Coyne family’s backyard, no-pads tackle football league from the early 1970s, where we get to see a young Wayne, his various rough shod brothers (some of whom spent subsequent years shuffling in and out of prison) and their pals smoking copious amounts of weed, chugging beers and delivering forearm shivers to each other in the face.

Throughout the film Coyne comes off as an immensely likable, real-life Peter Pan, a fun loving guy who still lives on the same street in “sort of a ghetto area of Oklahoma” because he feels comfortable there, mowing his lawn in absurd green boots and building science fiction movie sets in his back yard.

A truly great band documentary that will hold Flaming Lips devotees entranced throughout, and, more importantly, proves riveting for even the casual Lips fan.

“The Fearless Freaks” plays on Fri. April 15 at 9:30 p.m. and again on Sat. April 16 at 7 p.m. at the Bell Auditorium as part of the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival.