A 12-year-old boy called Ingemar (Anton Glanzelius) keeps reminding himself that suffering or hardship is relative. For long stretches of time, he lives what appears to be a dog’s life—this a reality in the 1985 Swedish film, My Life as a Dog, directed by Lasse Hallstrom. Ah, but this comic confection would be much better if it wasn’t childishly preoccupied with female breasts, primarily through spoken references to them. To be sure, dollops of kid and adult nudity are here too, and so, curiously, are flatness and insufficiency. Who, really, is the sexy Berit (Inge-Marie Carlsson), and even Ingemar’s goofy uncle (Tomas von Bromssen)? More annoying is that Dog is vulgar enough to almost smile on child sex. This Dog has had its day and should now be forgotten.

(In Swedish with English subtitles)

The 1956 John Ford film, The Searchers, isn’t perfect but it’s riveting. To me it seems longer than two hours and I’m glad of it, since the plot is sturdy and the Monument Valley and San Juan River scenes are gorgeous. John Wayne, even so, tries to make main character Ethan Edwards a hero, but the man is not a hero. It is Ward Bond‘s Reverend/Captain Clayton who is a largely decent soul; Ethan, a narrow-minded monster until the end, isn’t. . . As for the acting, Wayne is simply too limited, and most of the other actors rant and fret excessively. Bond, I think, is fine, but I dislike Jeffrey Hunter.

In Tom Perrotta‘s short story “Backrub” (from the book, Nine Inches), the teenaged Donald stands up to a middle-aged, homosexual cop who wants to give Donald a backrub. Good. All the same, the young dude is proving to be a moral disappointment—to his parents and, well, even the world. He backs away from a commitment to travel to Uganda and help orphans there. Eventually he gets into big trouble with the police.

Donald senses that he can afford to be an “asshole” or a rebel of sorts. This is a “backrub” he can live with. He’s wrong, though. This seems to be a coming of age story (in an oh-so-liberal world)—a rich and assuredly not-boring one. The “Steinbeck of suburbia,” as Perrotta has been called, has done it again.

The Saturday Night Kid, from 1929, is yet another old, old movie based on a play. Dealing with a romantic rivalry between two sisters, its chief interest lies in how well Clara Bow did in owning a part in a talkie. She has a not-bad voice and gives a grounded, energetic performance in a forgettable comedy-drama. Jean Arthur, with her Betty Boop voice, is serviceable. Kid almost sells us charm the way a Rene Clair French film did, but not quite. Still, I recommend it.