Part Eyes Wide Shut, part Romance and 100 per cent French "psychosexual drama," Didier Le Pêcheur's Don't Let Me Die on a Sunday isn't for those who considered Kubrick's last film to be an indulgent, confused, misogynistic flop. Here the erotic adventure is tinged with a distinctly Français mélange of malcontent and perversion. Beautiful 19-year-old rave nymph Elodie Bouchez ODs, is pronounced dead, then literally gets screwed back to life by debauched morgue employee Jean-Marc Barr, who's in an existentialist funk. This unlikely twosome then embarks on a tour of Paris' S&M orgy circuit. Otherwise valid ideas put forth here (that society's become immune to the realities of AIDS and the proliferation of hardcore porn) are hard to ponder when you're dealing with characters this unsympathetic.

On a fluffier note, Flushed, an indie written and directed by Carrie Ansell, is equally hard to watch, but for very different reasons. Set in the men's and women's bathrooms of a New York bar, 100 young men and women stream in and out having supposedly funny and candid conversations about sex and bodily functions. Too bad the acting is terrible, the dialogue incredibly stilted and the jokes too played out for words. An embarrassment!

--Genevieve Paiement