{"id":243983,"date":"2010-11-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-02T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/douchebagsayswhat-an-interview-with-writer-editor-and-actor-andrew-dickler\/"},"modified":"2010-11-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-02T07:00:00","slug":"douchebagsayswhat-an-interview-with-writer-editor-and-actor-andrew-dickler","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/douchebagsayswhat-an-interview-with-writer-editor-and-actor-andrew-dickler\/","title":{"rendered":"Douchebagsayswhat? An interview with writer, editor and actor Andrew Dickler"},"content":{"rendered":"

por Scott Marks<\/p>\n

\"Douchebagsayswhat?<\/a>
Ben York Jones (left) and Andrew Dickler star in the mumblecore comedy\/drama \u201cDouchebag.\u201d (Photo courtesy Red Dragon Entertainment)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Andrew Dickler was in town on behalf of the San Diego Film Critics Society (SDFCS) for a benefit screening of \u201cDouuchebag,\u201d a new independent feature that finds him wearing three hats (co-writer, editor and star) as well as a beard that only a Rabbi could love.<\/p>\n

Despite its edgy title, \u201cDouchebag\u201d follows a fairly familiar storyline: Sam (Dickler) is a week away from getting hitched. In an attempt to put an end to an old sibling rivalry, Sam\u2019s betrothed (Marguerite Moreau) decides to fetch estranged brother Tom (Ben York Jones) and bring him to the wedding. Once united, the boys embark on a road trip in search of Tom\u2019s fifth-grade crush. Think \u201cThe Hangover\u201d goes \u201cSideways.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dickler got his start as an apprentice editor on Quentin Tarantino\u2019s \u201cPulp Fiction\u201d and has since gone on to cut such indie classics as \u201cMe You and Everyone We Know\u201d and \u201cAnvil! The Story of Anvil.\u201d His is a tall, lean, energetic presence with a rapid-fire delivery that frequently resembles that of his mentor QT.<\/p>\n

\u201cDouchebag\u201d is one of the better examples of mumblecore, a newly coined, relatively incoherent genre desperate to catch on with the kids nowadays. On a rainy Tuesday, several members of the SDFCS met with Dickler (his whiskers trimmed from a forest to a shrub) over Cokes and what passes for pizza in San Diego to speak about the genre, the film\u2019s provocative title and the value of a tripod as opposed to its cost.<\/p>\n

Scott Marks: I never thought I\u2019d live to see the words \u201cDouchebag\u201d and \u201cJackass\u201d adorn a marquee, and the fact that I saw them on the same day has given me a double feature that I will always remember.<\/p>\n

Andrew Dickler: (Laughing) That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n

Q: I\u2019m not sure we could review a film with this title on the (KPBS Film Club) I refuse to say \u201cD-bag.\u201d<\/p>\n

A: How lame is that?<\/p>\n

Q: \u201cP***k\u201d would have been just as good a name and easier to get away with.<\/p>\n

A: \u201cP***k\u201d wouldn\u2019t have worked. It\u2019s different. It\u2019s way more mean-spirited and it\u2019s slang for penis. Douchebag is kind of a more playful way of saying a**hole…I think. What it comes from is a feminine hygiene product that no one uses anymore. Now it\u2019s become something different, a slang term. It\u2019s kind of part of the zeitgeist now, another way of saying what a jerk.<\/p>\n

Q. But douchebag is a term that can be seen as denigrating to women.<\/p>\n

A: Why?<\/p>\n

Q: Because it\u2019s a device intended to freshen a woman\u2019s vagina.<\/p>\n

A: Well, change the tip and it cleans the b*** hole, too.<\/p>\n

Q: (Laughing) Good point.<\/p>\n

A: Originally the movie was never called \u201cDouchebag.\u201d It was called \u201cMary Barger.\u201d All along, the producer Jonathan Schwartz said nobody knows who you guys are and nobody is going to go see a movie called \u201cMary Barger.\u201d I liked the title \u201cMary Barger.\u201d A banal woman\u2019s name is kind of intriguing, but for marketing purposes it didn\u2019t make sense. We sat around thinking what to call the movie, but the title didn\u2019t come to us. When we started talking about Sam\u2019s character, one of us said, \u201cThe guy\u2019s a douchebag.\u201d I saw (the look on) Jonathan\u2019s face and I said, \u201cWe should call the movie \u2018Douchebag.\u2019\u201d He didn\u2019t say anything, but I saw it in his face.<\/p>\n

Q: It was a lightbulb moment.<\/p>\n

A: Drake (Doremus), the director, and I didn\u2019t want to call it \u201cDouchebag\u201d because it sounded like a different movie than what is was. But the response was undeniable. Everybody laughed and it turns out (Jonathan) was right. To make a tiny, low-budget movie with no stars you need to have something (other than a good movie) to help.<\/p>\n

Q: Do you object to the term mumblecore or is it something you embrace or neither?<\/p>\n

A: It seems like it\u2019s become a genre and that\u2019s really for you guys. Film critics want to have a way to peg a movie and genres are a perfect way to describe to your readers what kind of movie it is.<\/p>\n

Q: Isn\u2019t it also good for studios to have a catchphrase to pitch? I would assume that most young filmgoers are familiar with the term.<\/p>\n

A: Absolutely.<\/p>\n

Q: And most people my age should not know what mumblecore means.<\/p>\n

A: It\u2019s a way to describe a movie that is not always accurate.<\/p>\n

Q: What comprises the genre?<\/p>\n

A: I can only tell you what I think it is, a movie with no budget, actors that nobody is familiar with and who may not even be professionals, a lot of improvisation, made with a minimal crew on simple locations, and it\u2019s dialog driven.<\/p>\n

Q: Isn\u2019t that called Italian neorealism? And you\u2019re forgetting two things: choking close-ups and hand-held camerawork. I don\u2019t understand it.<\/p>\n

A: I can explain it to you. It\u2019s cheap.<\/p>\n

Q: How expensive is a tripod?<\/p>\n

A: Expensive. To go buy the tripod is no problem. When you then put a camera on a tripod, you\u2019re setting up a shot and there is no time to set up or block a shot. You might be stealing a location or the sun is going down. You might not even have known you were shooting because you just now came up with an idea and it\u2019s like, \u201cOkay, let\u2019s roll.\u201d A tripod isn\u2019t going to do you any good. You have to be hand held. In our situation you couldn\u2019t make a movie with the descriptions we just talked about and put the camera on a tripod.<\/p>\n

Q: Why can\u2019t you just keep the camera permanently fixed to a tripod and when an idea comes to you, park it and hit the record button? Just to visually break things up a bit.<\/p>\n

A: We were encouraged to improvise and you couldn\u2019t follow us around with the camera in one position. It made it difficult for the cameraman, but it also made it possible for him to capture us doing something unexpected and not having to be tethered to a tripod. Being hand-held makes it look raw and smaller, and it does give the film a different feel. There are scenes in the car where the camera is mounted on the side.<\/p>\n

Q: So you can afford to rent a side mount for the day but a tripod is too expensive?<\/p>\n

A: That\u2019s a good point.<\/p>\n

Q: How come we haven\u2019t seen more of Nicole Viscus, the Roller-blading beauty that made a splash several years ago in a Coca-Cola commercial. (I thoroughly botch the pronunciation of her last name.)<\/p>\n

A: It\u2019s pronounced \u201cVicious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q: That\u2019s even better. She also skates in \u201cDouchebag.\u201d Is that how she got the job?<\/p>\n

A: I think the roller-skating did somehow play into it. That commercial is awesome and she\u2019s a really good actress.<\/p>\n

Q: When Sam is asked why he and Tom had a falling out, he invents a story about fighting over a pet dog. This is kind of like the film\u2019s Maguffin and I feared that the details of the story would be stale foreshadowing of things to come.<\/p>\n

A: Of course you know they\u2019re not really fighting over a dog. We always knew that \u201cDouchebag\u201d was going to be a story of two brothers trying to work out their relationship. That scene was shot on the second time around. Originally we had a different opening for the movie and we realized that we needed to better establish Sam\u2019s current life and the upcoming wedding and his fianc\u00e9e wanting to know why his brother is no longer involved in Sam\u2019s life. It was never our goal in the movie to explain away and eventually resolve why they hate each other. They are on a road and at least back in each other\u2019s lives. You hope that things will eventually be ironed out to the point where they are happy being with each other.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Marks Andrew Dickler was in town on behalf of the San Diego Film Critics Society (SDFCS) for a benefit screening of \u201cDouuchebag,\u201d a new independent feature that finds him wearing three hats (co-writer, editor and star) as well as a beard that only a Rabbi could love. Despite its edgy title, \u201cDouchebag\u201d follows […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1292,"featured_media":222621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Douchebagsayswhat? An interview with writer, editor and actor Andrew Dickler","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}