Churros y Palomitas · Dan Campos

Nunca leas los comentarios sobre Las Películas de Max del Río Ep 10

·1 hr 1 min·4 clips
Dan asks if Max del Río's new film has the merits to premiere at the Guadalajara festival after calling his first film terrible.
1. Churros y Palomitas episode 10 is hosted by Dan and Román, framed as a 'reading the comments' format episode focused on reactions to Dan's critical tweet and Letterboxd review of Max del Río's debut film. 2. Dan co-hosts and provides the industry analysis and personal testimony; Román provides cultural commentary and occasionally pushes back with his own experiences as a film educator. 3. The episode's premise is that Dan posted a question on X asking whether Max del Río had the merit to be at FIC Guadalajara given how bad he found the debut film, linked his one-and-a-half-star Letterboxd review, and is now reading the responses. 4. Fernando MDO from Benuca Films — who co-produced and distributed the debut film — responded calmly, noting taste breaks genres, the film plays with its own premise to offer something fresh, and that the festival slot was out of competition. 5. Dan notes he was unaware the slot was out of competition and accepts some responsibility for the framing of his original tweet, but declines to fully retract because he says the announcement was ambiguous. 6. Subsequent comments from anonymous accounts call the film a 'joyototota audiovisual' (audio-visual gem); when Dan asks a follow-up question about what specifically makes it that, the account insults him and immediately blocks him. 7. Román draws a parallel to his own experience criticizing Alejandro González Iñárritu's Bardo, which he found a terrible film — triggering a reaction from fans as though he had 'offended their grandmother.' 8. Dan describes the pattern as potentially consistent with the dead internet theory — the hypothesis that most online discourse is now bots arguing with bots — noting the combination of aggressive short responses, personal attacks, and immediate blocks is algorithmically consistent. 9. Román confirms the pattern is visible across all online communities, not just film, and that he also finds it increasingly plausible that most aggressive fan commentary lacks a human being behind it. 10. Dan argues that reflexive fan praise is actually more harmful to a filmmaker's development than honest critique, comparing it to a mother who tells her child every drawing is beautiful — fine as encouragement, useless as professional feedback. 11. He cites Kevin Smith's Clerks as a model of what a low-budget debut can become when the creator treats the craft seriously, and contrasts it with a film where the first 30 minutes are strong and the second half collapses because the script was not properly developed. 12. Román recounts a student film from his school Arte 7 in Querétaro — distributed by Benuca Films — that took nearly four years to complete, was rejected from multiple festivals, and was told by multiple industry labs that it needed to be rewritten or reduced to a short film before the filmmakers pushed through to distribution. 13. Dan reveals that he screened Max del Río's film in a Querétaro cinema where only three people attended; the other two left before the first third of the film ended, leaving him as the only person who watched it in full. 14. Max del Río's film on YouTube has 69,000 views and 4,000 likes, which Dan acknowledges is a respectable number for self-distributed content, especially since his own top YouTube video — a top-five list of pornographic films — reached over a million views. 15. Letterboxd reviews from contacts in Dan's network show a pattern: several gave one to one-and-a-half stars; one critic who gave three stars noted the first half hour was genuinely good but the second half collapsed when the film tried to develop characters. 16. Dan reads a comment from a Letterboxd user that was posted to the Peli de la Semana account — a prominent Mexican film critic — noting that after Dan's response the comments were closed, which Dan credits to himself. 17. Román notes that Peli de la Semana is a popular Mexican film critic who has survived multiple public accusations without cancellation, which he frames as evidence that cancellation culture does not work in Mexico. 18. The tone throughout is conversational and self-deprecating, with Dan repeatedly qualifying that Max del Río has accomplished more by making films than Dan has at the equivalent career stage. 19. Mexican film critics and enthusiasts interested in indie cinema discourse, online fan behavior, and the economics of micro-budget Mexican productions will find the episode dense with specific examples and industry-level analysis. 20. Listeners who want plot discussion of the actual film, or who are fans of Max del Río, are likely to find the episode frustrating.
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