Dog day: Siri Melchior's The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside stars in this year International Dog Film Festival (Photo: IDFF)

A few of this weekend's worthwhile cinematic happenings around New York:

--I ran through about, say, 20 dog-related plays on words before realizing that there simply is no cheap gag funnier than the very concept of an International Dog Film Festival. The traveling event--which is more short-film program than festival--makes its NYC stop Saturday uptown at Symphony Space, featuring films about a last-place finisher in the Iditarod Sled Dog race, a dog's-eye view of a walk and highlighted by Timothy Greenberg's La Puppe, which showcases "a nuanced performance from MARTY, the patriarch of the French New Wave Plush-Toy movement and still the leading inanimate object working in film today." John Harden's RESfest favorite La Vie d'un Chien will also screen. Festival organizers kindly request that you leave your own dogs at home, but hey--this is New York: You cannot even be a dog lover in this town unless you are dragging your beloved pooch around in a handbag, can you?

--So let us say you were one of the procrastinators who missed the wildly successful extended run of Bernardo Betrolucci's The Conformist a few months ago at Film Forum. Well, stop grieving and find your way to Astoria on Saturday, where the Museum of the Moving Image is screening the restored 35mm print as this week's Repertory Night feature. Or make it a full day of head-exploding film-snob irony and arrive early for the Museum's Laurel and Hardy shorts program. No one will ever again accuse you of not being serious about your cinema.

--But if real suffering is your thing--like full-on, Jesus-esque cinematic scourging--get thee to the multiplex and let director Chris Columbus (and dance star Anthony Rapp) whip you with Rent. You can emerge from the weekend saved, which will come in handy when Disney and God fire up the Rapture in a couple of weeks with The Chronicles of Narnia. Do not say you were not warned!