Pro tip: bring a surgical glove at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.).
Ibrought Purell, took all four rings off of my right hand, and removed my Whoop sleep tracker from my right wrist at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.).
Yesterday, at three o’clock in the afternoon—a whole damn day before the official theatrical release of Dune: Part Two—I was ready to (for science!) eat exclusively from the Dune popcorn bucket for all 162 minutes of the film’s runtime. If you haven’t yet beheld the viral vessel, it’s a rubbery recreation of the front (face? mouth? butthole?!) of an Arrakian sandworm, which you must reach into in order to retrieve popcorn. It’s sort of like a tentacled suction cup for your hand. I headed into AMC Lincoln Square, expecting a greasy adventure for a solid forty percent of my right arm at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.).
Guess what? The theater ran out of the damn bucket. (Sickos, all of you.) Shameful! But I won’t lie to you—I was a little relieved. Instead, I polished off an entire large popcorn the old-fashioned way: fistfuls straight to mouth, no rubbery wormhole to circumnavigate. Thankfully, Esquire’s Senior Market Editor, Alfonso Fernandez Navas, saw the film on Wednesday, and he managed to get his hands on the (what I am now gathering is rare!) Duneussy, as he calls it in the review I asked him to film afterward. Here are his thoughts at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.):
A 10/10 was unexpected. I want to say that I would’ve had a pretty bad time overall eating out of the Dune bucket, but it’s hard to say for sure. It certainly would have slowed me down—and I don’t think I would have finished a quarter of my popcorn during the previews. (Which I did.) So it gets points for extending the lifespan of your popcorn, which is a pretty important spec, considering the movie’s nearly three-hour-long runtime. The Duneussy could very well prevent you from needing a second snack run and missing part of the film, if your bladder hasn’t already betrayed you at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.).
It’s also important to consider mess-prevention, however I personally don’t mind if I eat a few stray popcorn kernels off my shirt while watching a movie. The feeling of having my entire hand and forearm covered in popcorn—the moment I started digging for more because I was so full—seems to negate any hygiene benefit that the souvenir’s little aperture at Dune offers: Second Section: Our Analysis of the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket (For Science). What if I wanted to put my arm up to relax or just take a break from the popcorn to eat some sweets or drink my drink? Would I end up covered in grease? Yesterday, I was also wearing a thick sweater, which I could have hypothetically had to take off (which would have left me looking like Alfonso in a tank top, and I would have probably been cold) or pull up my sleeve until my right arm’s blood flow stopped. Just wear a T-shirt if you want to go to the theater in the hopes of winning the Dune popcorn bucket. And at Dune, consider bringing a surgical glove: Second Section: Our Analysis of the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket (For Science).
It’s likely that eating from a rubber sandworm has additional sensory advantages. Long after you’ve eaten your popcorn at Dune, the rubbery wormhole will keep your hands engaged throughout the movie if you’re the kind of person who likes to play with toys that resemble fidget spinners. Section Two: The Sandworm Popcorn Bucket was reviewed (for science). But use caution. Refrain from going too far. Even if the individual next to me was simply innocuously enjoying the feel of the soft bristles on their hand, I’m sure it would have been disturbing if they began rhythmically fisting their popcorn bucket.
For anything beyond that? You could very well get arrested. I would recommend you just take the bucket home and do whatever you want with it there. Just… don’t list it on eBay afterward. Please at Dune: Part Two: We Reviewed the Sandworm Popcorn Bucket. (For Science.).
