Film excellence at the Toronto International Film Festival which ended […]

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Although the books which got turned into the “Harry Potter” […]

The Persian story goes, when your heart is filled with sorrow, find a patience stone or syngué sabour that will listen as you talk to it until it can take no more and bursts into pieces, lifting that weight from your shoulders and leaving you free. This well-known legend has been written up any number of times, including by Iranian novelist Sadegh Chubak, and filmed at least once, in 1968. It is also the basis of the novel by Atiq Rahimi, Syngué sabour, that in 2008

Jem Cohen’s “Museum Hours” is a contemplative, leisurely look at the world of art as a parallel to ours. A loose narrative pulls together the director’s musings on the correspondence between the two. The story, such as it is, introduces us to a Canadian woman (singer Mary Margaret O'Hara) who travels to Vienna to visit a cousin she hasn’t seen in years and who has fallen in a deep coma with little chance of recovery. For someone

In the department of gems to discover, “Starlet,” by Sean Baker.

Once in a while we’re lucky enough to come upon an excellent film that had somehow slid under our radar screen. I’m thinking “Tiny Furniture,” showered with awards at indie film festivals, written about, lauded but attracting only a small audience. As a writer, I was green with envy when I finally saw it. How can an author be so smart, so hip, so original, in a context done