Stranger Than Fiction, #17: A weird little time capsule

Should you watch this? Only if you have ten minutes to kill and a high tolerance for absolute nonsense. If you’re looking for a plot, look elsewhere. People who love Is Prohibition a Dry Subject? or just enjoy hunting for weird historical artifacts will dig this. If you need logic or a narrative thread, you will hate it.

The Fish Racing Thing

I still don't understand how they trained the fish. There’s this guy leaning over a track, and the fish are just... moving. It’s supposed to be a sport. It feels like something invented by someone who had too much free time and not enough reality in their life.

There's no tension. Just a fish moving toward a finish line. The camera operator clearly didn't know how to track a goldfish, so it's mostly just blurry water.

The Rest of the Mess

Then we’re in Washington, and everything is electric. They act like toasters are magic. It’s charming in that naive way, like watching a child discover a light switch for the first time.
The glass-blowing bit? It’s surprisingly intense. Watching a mother teach her kid how to handle molten glass without protective gear is wildly stressful. You can practically hear the OSHA inspectors screaming from the future.

Observations from the couch

• The three-tailed dog definitely only had two tails. I checked.
• That tennis gadget looks like it would shatter your wrist in under a minute.
• The narration is so monotone it puts you in a trance.
• It feels less like a documentary and more like a collection of rejected news segments.

It’s not as polished as The Garden of Allah, but it’s got a weird energy. It’s the kind of thing you stumble onto at 2 AM and can't look away from. It’s barely a film. It’s just stuff. And honestly? Sometimes that’s enough. 🐟