The Smell of Success (2011)

Truly Dreadful Film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Better Late Then Never

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Honestly, the poop jokes are what people mainly took away... but there's so much more! Tons of social comment, companies, chemical manufacture, people... you name it, it's here.If all you took away from this was faecal pleasantries, you weren't paying attention. This is not a film for extremely literal people, or people who are ignorant of current events in the world of agriculture, food production, global patenting etc. We all know who 'Milagro' is supposed to represent.I adored the way it was filmed - some people hated it, but I thought it lent just the right tone... a deliberately artificial atmosphere, and it made it all the better. I don't know who dressed the sets, but if I ever do something like this, I want them working for me.The gags are just a plus, each one deliberate and funny as hell taken with the whole... these are not 'stand alone' gags.This is a magic cast for this sweet little film, and it 'comes up smelling like roses' for me.Watch out for the mushrooms, and don't eat fertilizer!

The 'Smell of Success' seems quite an an odd title for the film but a couple of minutes into the movie, I realized that the makers were being quite literal. Anyway, it's nice to see that there's a film about the fertilizing industry in the 50s and one that doesn't rely on toilet humour. First of all, most of the jokes were quite funny. I laughed at a number of them even though a few of them were overdone (for example the breast augmentation jokes, the jumping from the plane etc). The visuals are beautiful. Despite being sepia tinted and almost devoid of colour, they look quite artistic. Most of the frames look like beautiful paintings. The 50s look is also very well captured thanks to the fine art direction costume and makeup. Billy Bob Thornton does a decent job as the head fertilizer salesman who suddenly feels threatened by sensational Rose and undermines her in his attempts. Tèa Leoni is amazing, proving her comedic fort once again. Frances Conroy is a delight. Mark Polish, Pruitt Taylor Vince and Ed Helm provide good support. Kyle Machlachlan too isn't bad as the smug antagonist. I only felt that the story lacked consistency. It would occasionally delve into subplots that are never developed. As stated earlier, some of the jokes were overdone and felt repetitive. Given the concept, it could have been a funnier flick but for some reason the Polish Brothers restrain.Yet, it's a decent watch. A film that certainly has charms with some classy creative toilet humour.

I just had to turn this off after 20 minutes or so. Unbelievably bad. And as one reviewer pointed out, about half the dialogue is puns on manure and excrement. Also, most of the outdoor scenes look horribly artificial, like a bad B-movie (and even though this was intentional in a way, it's still terrible to look at and undermines whatever attempt at realism/credibility the film is making). Cannot understand how they assembled such a decent cast for such a horrible piece of ... (insert fecal term of choice) And I'm not just hatchet-jobbing the film because it's so bad, I was just wishing afterwards that someone has warned me off it. Even liking Billy Bob Thornton and Tea Leoni (spelling?) didn't help at all. I actually felt sorry and embarrassed for them! That's how bad this was. Too bad.

As soon as I saw the start of this film I asked myself, "Why the sepia tones?" Later, I asked, "Is this a play? Finally, when unsure of the answers to either question, I turned to IMDb. Oh, I see! It's shot on digital! Now, the RED camera is capable of super-realistic colour reproduction. On the other hand, RED format can sometimes even pass off masquerade as film - for a while. Given time, we audiences will possibly come to accept its particular look as being worthy of filmic drama. But not yet. Until that day, those film-makers who are unsure of their screenplay, talent or the financial certainty of their venture are likely to seek the cost-savings which digital acquisition can offer.One day too, some brave cinematographer will use the RED's hyper-colour potential, starting an exciting, new genre. Until then, cut-cost producers will try vainly to disguise RED's inability to actually look like film. Usually these DOPs rely upon under-exposing and heavily back-lighting their scenes, with often a touch of rim-lighting to dazzle and sparkle. It's sort of like every lady's best trick: the little black cocktail dress. -But all day? Every day??With The Smell of Success, the producers have gone all the way and hidden the colour altogether. It's sepia! only the faintest hint of skin-tones. We are treaated to yellow skies, hospital doctors in beige lab-coats, beige teeth and lots of brown. I'm afraid the whole film reminds me of the nicotene-stained Czechoslovakian cafes of the Soviet days. An aesthetic mistake. Bad taste. Please take the whole thing back to the colourists and undo that last, desperate decision they made in an attempt to save a picture they had no confidence in: Lose the sepia. Re-release the original, un-colourised film. If we want modified colours we can probably tweak the settings ourselves.