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Festival audiences are generally more generous than traditional theatrical crowds. It's a double-edged sword. Some films that will never see the light of day, or the darkness of theatrical release, find audiences who are willing to set aside their critical opinions and just enjoy a film for mere competence of craft, a lone performance or the nimble work of an up-and-coming cinematographer. We're willing to dole out A's for effort.

After seeing Being Michael Madsen on Saturday, I was guilty of thinking a mediocre movie had merit. I found myself muttering to a friend shortly thereafter, “I think it was a pretty effective recitation on fame and privacy and ...” I trailed off, unable to sustain an argument for which I knew I was about to be asked to provide evidence when there was none.

Being Michael Madsen is a mockumentary in which Michael Madsen plays not himself, but a fictionalized version of himself. He has a run in with a paparazzo, exacts revenge by hiring a documentary crew to out-paparazzi the tabloid photographer, and what the audience ends up watching is supposed to be a documentary about that fictional documentary.

And for this effort I'm only willing to dole out meta-points for what-could-have-beens and a litany of decent ideas poorly executed that I won't get into here. In-studio-interview-heavy and overacted in a way that Christopher Guest would probably cringe at, Being Michael Madsen was a chore to watch.

Sure, a few stellar seconds here and there from Virginia Madsen and Harry Dean Stanton (both personal favorites, both playing themselves, sort of) brought a smile to my face, but I just don't see this film playing well to anyone who lives outside the cat-and-mouse game the film attempts to mock. If it does get theatrical release, it will only be because a distribution exec has the money to invest in his own myopia. Which probably means it will hit multiplexes this spring. -- Sean Cronin

You've got nothing to do tonight, right? Skip another night of must-see TV and head over to the best Denver cultural event of the year, the Denver Film Festival. We've compiled some reviews and profiles of filmmakers and suggest, if you can, that you check out one of the following.

Iron Ladies of Liberia, which screens at 7 p.m., follows the first year in office of Africa's first elected female head of state, and was co-directed by Denver documentarian Daniel Junge.

The Memory Thief tells the tale of a man whose obsession with the pain of the past ultimately consumes him. It's really good and screens at 9 p.m.

End of the Line is a fun, stupid and gross horror/suspense flick that screens at 9:45 p.m.

The Memory Thief
Director: Gil Kofman

It's going to take a long time to digest this film. For me, the entire experience was thrown off by the woman in front of offering information on her colonoscopy to no one in particular. Shortly after that, Songbird, the short film from director John Thompson, put everyone in a disturbed mindset for viewing a truly disturbing feature. Songbird, a recitation on battered women's syndrome, featured the decaptitation of two animals, and eleicted gasps from several in the audience. Including yours truly who has a fairly iron stomach for that kind of thing.

And then we got to the main event. The Memory Thief is a captivating tale from director Gil Kofman about a dissaffected young toll booth worker whose past is a mystery. To fill in the gaps of his own lost history, and kill the pain of whatever it is that disturbs him – in a brilliant move of omission, the audience never finds out what – Lukas (Mark Webber) finds himself becoming more and more obsessed with the plight of Holocaust survivors. As we watch his haunting descent into madness, Lukas adopts the most painful identity he can find as his own to consequences that are as hard to watch as they are powerful and moving. Certain elements of the film seem a bit contrived, there are certain narrative neccessities – such as Lukas' introduction to Hitler's Mein Kampf, a text we're supposed to believe he's never heard of before – seem a little forced. But with a genius performance from Webber and deft editing from Curtiss Clayton, Kofman's obsession with obsession is one of the more affecting films I have ever seen.
-- Sean Cronin

Iron Ladies of Liberia
Directors: Daniel Junge and Siatta Scott-Johnson

When Denver-based documentary director Daniel Junge and producer Henry Ansbacher first contacted newly elected Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf (who, among other degrees, received a masters in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1970), they were told their documentary crew could have two weeks of access. Two weeks to make a documentary film is nothing, but Junge and Ansbacher -- the principals of the Denver documentary film company Just Media -- saw their shot to tell the story of the first elected female head of state in Africa, and they took it.
Days before they left, Junge discovered the Jonathan Stack film Liberia: An Uncivil War, and contacted Stack to see if he’d be interested in helping out with the project. Stack agreed to come on board as co-producer of the film and put the filmmakers in touch with Liberian journalist Siatta Scott-Johnson, who would end up co-directing the film with Junge.

Once in Liberia, the filmmakers were able to turn two weeks of access into fifteen weeks of shooting during five trips to Liberia over the course of a year. With this unprecedented access to the leader of a nation at a crossroads, Junge and company were able to pique the interests of the PBS series Independent Lens and producers at the BBC. The increased interest and financial backing enabled Just Media to produce a truly unique and compelling feature length look at the birth of a tenuous democracy in a war-torn country. Truncated, hour-long versions of Iron Ladies of Liberia will screen in March on Independent Lens and around the world soon as part of the Why Democracy? documentary series, of which the BBC is a principle member, but you can see what Junge feels is the most complete version of the documentary at the Starz Denver Film Festival.

While the story of the making of this film is compelling enough, it pales in comparison to the travails of President Johnson-Sirleaf as she deftly steers her country through the troubled waters of her first year in office. Facing economic crisis, corrupt political opposition and civil war soldiers rioting in the streets of the capitol, Johnson-Sirleaf's story is a profile in the democratic possibilities of not only Liberia, but that of an entire continent rife with horrific conflict.
-- Sean Cronin

Last Hat in Town
Director: Zachary Fink
Remaining showtime: 12:30 p.m., Sunday, November 18

Told through the stories of three men with three unique and intimiate ties to the rugged business of oil and gas extraction in the Rocky Mountain West, director Zachary Fink's documentary Last Hat in Town uses these character studies to tell the tale of the West's – and particularly Colorado's -- changing economic and cultural landscape. Fink is a product of the now defunct (deep, heavy sigh) ethnographic filmmaking program at CU-Boulder -- which was administered jointly by the anthropology and film departments – and as such, brings a keen eye for the ways in which the changing landscape of mineral extraction in the West affects the lives of his three main characters, and consequently the regional culture as a whole.

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The world's worst writer has had enough. Tormented by the knowledge that he will never make it as a playwright, he abandons his primary passion for a more lucrative trade at which he finds he has a natural talent: Robbing banks. And this spur-of-the-moment act of desperation changes his life and inspires those around him to take charge of theirs.

It hardly seems like an inspirational act; to most it would seem a sign of desperation at worst, an example of anti-establishment protest theatrics at best. But as the narrative thrust of director Monty Miranda's black comedy Skills Like This, the quarter-life crisis of Max Solomon (played by Skills screenwriter Spencer Berger) works well as both catalyst and comedic fodder.

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Mountain Town
Director: Brendan Kiernan and Frank Pickell
Cinematographer: Jasper Gray
Show times: Monday, November 12, 6:15 p.m.; Wednesday, November 14, 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, November 18, 5:30 p.m.

Pick path, pursue it to the exclusion of everything else, and the universe will conspire with you to make things happen. Even in Aspen, Colorado. Informed by this belief and born of the desire to tell the story of an Aspen that eschews stereotypes of the town, Mountain Town is a documentary profile of the Roaring Fork Valley told through the perspective of eleven Aspen residents by Aspen-born, Denver-based filmmakers Brendan Kiernan and Frank Pickell.

“Everyone thinks [Aspen] is a certain kind of a place super glitzy, those kind of Hollywood stories, that's the kind of wrap that it has,” says Kiernan. “We had talked about the idea of wanting to make a film about the people who make it such a special place, about a core group of people who make it what it is.”

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OK, there are some weird signs that things in the world aren’t right. And a group of religious fanatics pointing to those signs. And a subway train. Plus, of course, a small group of “normal” people just trying to get home. Add these together, add some cheap blood and gore, and voila: End of the Line, a fun, stupid indie horror flick from Canada. The low-budget approach is constantly in evidence, and the wooden acting is painfully apparent in the early bits with lots of talking and little action, but once the running/screaming/stabbing gets rolling it’s a non-issue. It has a decently creepy atmosphere, an acceptable but not overwhelming amount of gore and a solid number of “gotcha” moments. One scene pushes good taste right out the door, but that’s to be expected in a low-budget horror flick and the filmmakers don’t dwell on it too long. There were also a few chuckle-worthy moments and one or two laugh-out-loud scenes. The overall mix of elements worked well, aided by the film not seeming to take itself too seriously, but also never devolving into self-conscious cheesiness or irony. To wrap it all up, there’s a really fun twist at the end that’s somewhat spoiled by heavy-handed foreshadowing that sucks most of the surprise out of it. All in all it’s better than most of the big-budget horror of the past five years or more, and definitely worth a look for fans of the genre, or anyone looking for something lighter than the typical film festival fare.

Catch it yourself: Thursday, November 15, 10 p.m.

The JFK assassination is probably the best-covered event in pre-9/11 American history and the documentary Oswald’s Ghost is director Robert Stone's another take on it. As documentaries go, it’s fairly entertaining, but it lacks a strong message or narrative thrust. It builds a case that Oswald could have done it alone and probably – maybe – did. I think. It spends so much time zipping through the various conspiracies and the figures that nurtured them in the aftermath of the assassination, than poking holes in their theories that it becomes a little confusing. There is some great archival footage of Oswald and interviews with key members of the press who covered the event as it happened, but the real substance is the evidence offered that the country slid into conspiratorial thought in the aftermath of the assassination and the other political killings that followed. The film basically says that when faced with both a horrific political event and evidence that the government lies, the natural result is a “trust no one” mentality and conspiracy theories that spring up around any inconsistency or unanswered question – an idea supported by the existence of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Ultimately the film falls a little flat, due to a lack of a clear, consistent message or conclusion, but it’s worth a look for history buffs and JFK conspiracy theorists.

Catch it for Yourself: Tuesday, November 13, 9:30 p.m.