Stranger Than Fiction #23: A strange, grainy time capsule

Is it worth your time?

If you have ten minutes and a strange craving for black-and-white curiosities, sure. It’s for the folks who get a kick out of old-timey newsreels and weird, dusty facts. If you need a plot or, I don't know, a coherent theme, you’re going to be bored out of your mind within sixty seconds.

It’s basically a parade of weird stuff. One minute you're watching a mass wedding in China, and the next you’re watching someone test how much weight a pair of stockings can hold at the Bureau of Standards. It’s erratic. It’s fast. It’s almost too much.

The vibe is just... odd

There’s this one bit about an old fire engine that’s still running after 84 years. They show it, it clanks around, and then—poof—we’re suddenly looking at sand art. No transition. No explanation. It feels like someone just shuffled a deck of random film clips and hit 'play' on the projector.

It lacks the narrative punch of something like The Last Laugh. But honestly, it’s not trying to be that. It’s just trying to be a weird, dusty scrapbook of the world.

• The mass wedding segment is oddly hypnotic.
• The stocking test feels like something out of a science fiction nightmare, but in the 1930s.
• The narrator’s voice is so clipped and fast, it makes my head spin.

The whole thing feels like a commercial for curiosity itself. Or maybe just a way to fill space in a movie theater before the main feature. It’s kind of charming in how little it cares about making sense. 🎞️

I found myself wondering if anyone actually remembers these things. The sand blast pictures? Who even does that anymore? It’s a total relic. Like The Artist's Model, it exists in this weird little vacuum where everything is just a bit too stiff and formal.

Anyway, don't overthink it. It's ten minutes of your life you won't get back, but you'll probably know one or two more weird facts for your next dinner party. Watch it, don't watch it. It doesn't really matter.