'Kissing Frogs' is more fun than it sounds like

No wonder "Tired of Kissing Frogs" was big box office in Mexico. It's a delightful romantic comedy, traditional in form but contemporary in feeling. It has a great look, a scintillating cast and a bouncy pace. Its talented star, Ana Serradilla, her distinctive supporting players and her shrewd director, Jorge Colon, and his clutch of writers can catch a viewer by surprise with the film's deft finish.

Suspense builds as to whether Serradilla's Martha will lose her chance at true love by a mix of shortsighted attitudes, misunderstandings and just plain bad luck. This heretofore frothy film becomes a reminder that even a person as privileged as Martha is vulnerable to the capriciousness of fate, making it possible to care more about her than one would have imagined.

When Martha confirms her suspicions that her wealthy attorney fiance (Juan Manuel Bernal) may be straying, she signs on to an Internet dating service. The perils are amusingly predictable, but meanwhile her fiance doggedly tries to win her back even as an aspiring young actor (Jose Maria de Tavira), who serves her coffee in a cafe every morning, falls in love with her in silence. To its credit, "Tired of Kissing Frogs" has a zesty, turn-the-tables feminist spirit without weighing itself down with a heavy-handed attack on machismo; it's possible to imagine Martha ending up with either suitor as a happy ending -- or, sadly, with neither man.

-- Kevin Thomas

"Tired of Kissing Frogs." MPAA rating: R for sexual content and some language. In Spanish with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes. In general release.

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The emperor of the velvet rope

Forever standing outside but acting like he's inside, the club doorman is a power position that Manhattan night-lifers love to hate -- and a surprisingly ripe subject for a mockumentary about the cruel allure of glittery access. "The Doorman" is filmmaker Wayne Price's "Borat"-ish attempt at a character comedy in which an arrogant, air-kissing velvet-rope holder named Trevor W. (Lucas Akoskin) wields his gatekeeper prowess -- sifting out the flawed from the flawless at hot spots, Fashion Week and even a rock star's bus -- until the camera crew following him (led by Price himself) begins to notice the unmistakable sense that Trevor is on his 15th minute. Seemingly most of the cast is played by "Himself" or "Herself" -- club impresarios, doormen, media types and celebrities along for the gag -- but Price keeps the humor believably shallow and the movie from getting too far from the aim of chronicling an exclusivity junkie's fall. (With only a few forced bits at the end does it betray its roots as an idea for an "SNL"-like skit.)