Dune may not have won Best Picture at the Oscars this year, but the exactly two coughs during its 155-minute runtime set it up for a pretty good shot at doing so. At least, that’s the premise of a faux-academic study put together by a few people at The Pudding (Mike Lacher, Jason Eppink, and Russell Goldenberg) in conjunction with the Museum of the Moving Image.
The study in question is appropriately titled: Chalamet Coughs, Dune Wins: Predicting Best Picture Winners Using Coughs and Sneezes. It’s at once an exercise in humor and the idea that data-driven insights can paint any picture, if presented under certain constraints. The abstract opens up with the following:
