“Unbelievable,” said Jared Hamburger, stumbling out into the night after a showing of Eat Pray Love, the debut of NolanVision in New York City this past weekend. “Does God exist? Does love exist?” he asked, staring directly through me into empty space. “How much of my life is transient, illusory? Is Julia Roberts the hero or the villain?”
The project tentatively named NolanVision is spearheaded by Warner Bros, and has been heavily advertised in recent weeks as a daring attempt to alter existing movies so that they might appear to have been directed by Christopher Nolan. Greeted with skepticism by most in the know in Hollywood, prior to the debut there was widespread disagreement over whether audiences would react positively to such an unconventional promotion. 214 staggering minutes later those worries had been laid to rest for good.
“You really have to see it for yourself, but let me just say this: you will never look at eating a meal the same way again,” said Elise Harrison. “Christopher Nolan just stuck his big, moviemaking penis in my mind,” she elaborated. A friend of Harrison’s provided no comment, only saying “No, seriously dude, shut the hell up for a second. I’m thinking this through. Anagrams!” she said suddenly, fumbling through her purse for a pen and paper. “My God, of course, it’s always been anagrams!”
Jerry Connick Jr., a saxophonist from the Bronx, praised the director’s decision to gradually unravel the story, letting viewers realize on their own terms that the film was taking place in three separate dimensions of the same unifying reality. Also, he thought the action scenes fucking ruled. One older gentleman would not respond to questions, only yelling “DARK TONE! CONFLICTED CHARACTERS! MORAL AMBIGUITY!” over and over.
NolanVision is set to be retroactively applied to all movies released in 2010. “This year was ripe with possible NolanVision projects,” said one Warner Bros executive speaking on the condition of anonymity. “We had an advanced screening of Hot Tub Time Machine – three people personally thanked us afterwards for making the most entertaining movie of the year, and four people killed themselves right there in the theater out of existential malaise.”