Netflix Picks: Titillating Two By Isabel Coixet

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Isabel Coixet is one of the most prolific female directors in Spain, and her films have a way of making us cry. We're not usually like that with movies, but her stuff is so gosh darn beautiful and human that it hurts. Anyway, today we'll be straying away from the tearjerkers and focusing on the jawdroppers, for Isabel Coixet has directed some truly steamy scenes.

1. Elegy: This story--based on the Philip Roth novel "The Dying Animal"--is about David Kepesh (Ben Kingsley), a fifty-something critic and professor who's been divorced from his wife, cut off from his son, and tends to sleep with a bunch of younger women. When Consuela Castillo (Penelope Cruz) attends one of his lectures, David becomes enthralled by her and the two begin a physical relationship that threatens to boil over into an emotional one. Consuela asks David to come meet her family at her graduation party, and David, paralyzed by fear, makes up an excuse not to attend. Years pass, lives change, and we don't want to spoil the movie for you, but you should know that Penelope Cruz is most certainly naked in this film. You can check her (and Patricia Clarkson, who plays Kingsley's other-other woman) out at 10:00, 21:00, 36:45, 39:00, and 1:33:12.

2. Map of the Sounds of Tokyo: When a wealthy Japanese businessman learns that his daughter has taken her own life, he blames her Spanish boyfriend, David (Sergi Lopez), and sends a hitman after him. The hitman is actually a hitwoman named Ryu (Rinko Kikuchi) who works as a fish monger during the day, and after she meets David, sleeps with him, and has him at her mercy, she can't go through with the hit. Is she falling in love? Has she grown tired of her career? And what will the businessman do if Ryu is unable to complete her assignment? We're not telling you if she does or doesn't, but we will say that she has a lot of sex with David, and sexing is not killing. Said sexing may be found at 48:00, 59:00, and 1:07:30.

[At top: a scene from "Elegy" (movies.netflix.com)]