There's a terrific short film somewhere inside Mark Moskowitz's feature-length documentary Stone Reader. Unfortunately, it's buried within a flabby 128-minute slog that feels like a rough draft nobody had the heart to edit down. Moskowitz makes his living directing television commercials, so perhaps the film's length and sleepy pacing is his attempt to make amends for working in one of the most concise and heartless of media. The ultimate act of a fan's devotion, Stone Reader follows Moskowitz's epic search for Dow Mossman, a young author who published the rapturously received first novel The Stones Of Summer in 1972, then disappeared from the literary landscape. Long out of print and mostly forgotten, Mossman's book seemed to foretell great things, but both it and its author seem to have vanished into the ether. In his attempt to track down Mossman, Moskowitz–;who would appear utterly anonymous if not for his unfortunate resemblance to TV's Dr. Phil&–pursues countless dead ends, talking to critics, agents, book designers, and editors, none of whom seem to have answers. Moskowitz regularly cuts to lingering shots of nature or fairgrounds, which can be lyrical and haunting in small doses but ultimately just add to the film's aura of noodling self-indulgence. Moskowitz talks to some interesting people with incisive things to say about the relationship between readers and writers, and at its best, Stone Reader hints at a powerful author/audience bond that transcends race, class, region, and time itself. Stone Reader develops a strong sense of urgency and purpose the closer Moskowitz gets to his elusive prey, but a knockout final half-hour can't compensate for the tedium and aimlessness preceding it. It's hard to be overly critical of what's obviously a labor of love, but perhaps the best way to pay homage to the film's subject is to skip Reader and spend two hours curled up with a good book.