{"id":681,"date":"2025-09-17T20:15:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T20:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oscilloscope.net\/films\/?post_type=film&#038;p=681"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:49:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:49:10","slug":"mad-bills-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"film","link":"https:\/\/oscilloscope.net\/films\/film\/mad-bills-to-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Mad Bills To Pay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span data-sheets-root=\"1\">In a tight knit Dominican American community in The Bronx, Rico (Juan Collado) is hustling his way through the summer, selling bootleg \u201dnutcracker\u201d cocktails out of a beach cooler and chasing girls without a care in the world. But when his teenage girlfriend, Destiny (Destiny Checo), begins crashing at his place with his family, turning their small apartment into a stage for their messy, complicated young love, it\u2019s only a matter of time before they\u2019re hit with the sobering reality of growing up too fast in a city that waits for no one. Writer-director Joel Alfonso Vargas turns his hometown into the heartbeat of his debut feature, teaming up with street-cast talent Collado and Checo, to deliver a raw and deeply authentic look at life in The Bronx. 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