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“I have a story for you. “You could kill me.”
These are words no writer wants to hear from their editor, and yet on Thursday at 3:04 pm they rang in my ear like a death knell.
“So there’s a screening of ‘Dune: Part Two’ at 3:15 in the morning,” he said. I see what you’re telling me. “Wouldn’t it be fun if you went?”
That’s when fear came over me. Not because he had just agreed to spend the entire night on the planet Arrakis, but because it meant he had to spend the rest of the afternoon watching the first “Dune,” which, for some reason, he had failed to avoid in the intervening two and a half years. since its launch. I went home and got to work.
I thought about how I would approach this cruel task. Should I force myself to go to sleep at 9 pm and set an alarm for 2:30 am? Treat AMC’s stuffed rocking chair like a crib and accept from the start that there’s no way my eyes will stay open throughout the entire movie? My girlfriend offered me some of her prescription Adderall to keep me awake, which I considered before (don’t laugh at me) googling “does Adderall give you a bad crash?” The first result was a helpline number.
So after several failed attempts to fall asleep before the movie, I gave up and had coffee an hour before the premiere. I took an Uber and arrived at AMC Lincoln Square in the middle of the night, where I stood in line with about 200 other monsters and/or insomniacs to witness Denis Villeneuve’s sci-fi spectacle on a glorious 70mm Imax screen on the second largest movie screen in the United States.
They were mainly guys. And aside from a guy dressed in bedazzled cowboy boots and wrapped in shiny chains, the dress code was casual and sloppy. After all, this isn’t “Barbie.” (Though one older gentleman showed off his studio ethos with a Warner Bros. bomber jacket, a nod to the company footing the bill for Villeneuve’s vision.)
While waiting in line, I talked to a trio of friends in their 20s who had walked 45 minutes from New Jersey. They saw the first “Dune” just a few days ago at a fan screening and bought tickets for “Part Two” for 3:15 a.m. because virtually every other 70mm Imax showing was sold out.
That was a common theme. At this ungodly hour, people came to this place. not by magic but because they procrastinated. Chris (26) and Kristina (23), a couple who drove from Long Island, did not sabotage their Friday and spent the afternoon taking a nap because sought a… it was his only option. The same goes for Victor, 22, who camped out in a New York University library until 2 a.m. to avoid having to go back and forth to Jersey City. Emily, a 21-year-old film student at Pace holding two bottles of Dasani, was here because her friends “bullied” her.
For all their star power (the film’s cast is an elite roster of beauties and heartthrobs), not a single one of the dozen people I spoke to even mentioned Timmy Chalamet, Zendaya, or Austin Butler. Rather, the caffeinated fandom seemed entirely focused on the film’s special format. Move over Florence Pugh, we came for the 70mm Imax.
For filmmaker Orges Bakalli, 31, it was all simple math: “It’s ‘Dune.’ It’s Imax. They are 70 mm. This is the screen.” Standing at the end of the concessions line, which even at 3:30 a.m. continued to snake past the poles, Bakalli smiled. “Cinema is back, baby!”
Amy, a 19-year-old assistant manager who scans tickets, told me before the movie started that her shift usually ends around 3 a.m., which reminded me that AMC is typically not a 24-hour establishment.
“Usually our last times are around 11 or 12, but for ‘Dune’ we added one more because we knew people would come see it,” said Amy, who checked in at 5:45 p.m. and planned to return “To be honest, next time I have this kind of shift I need to have enough food and enough energy.”
It was only 3:40 am and my eyelids were already swollen, so I bought a huge Diet Coke. To my dismay, AMC had already sold out of those fuckable popcorn buckets.
Inside the theater, people were pumped. The room was about 80% full, but I found a group of empty seats to fill. As a new Nicole Kidman ad mesmerized the audience, one boy shouted, “I LOVE YOU, MOMMY!” Not even the title card that said “Dune: Part Two” that enthusiasm level.
About 45 minutes into the movie, I thought for sure I was toast. Those beautiful desert sand dunes reminded me of pillows and I wondered what life decisions I made that led me here, to seat H35. But then I saw a guy fall asleep two rows in front of me and I thought how annoying it would be to have to watch this movie. again just to catch the parts I missed. I’m not as weak as him, I thought, inhaling my Diet Coke. And, to my own surprise, I soldiered on, savoring Paul Atreides’ larger-than-life odyssey until the credits rolled at 6:18am.
Going down the escalator, I met up with the three friends from New Jersey. “What are your plans this morning?” I asked and they told me they were going to walk west to see the sunrise over the Hudson. I didn’t have the heart (read: brain cells) to tell them that the sun rises in the east.
Emily and her friends were heading to the Flame Diner for breakfast, one of them mentally preparing for her NYU essay at noon. Me? I got an Uber home. He had other matters to attend to.
When I left AMC, tremendously tired, the sun was smiling on Broadway. A handful of people emerged from the subway, walking purposefully up and down the street. It was tomorrow and these people lived in the future. I couldn’t wait to slide like a sandworm into bed.