Stranger Than Fiction, #28: A weird, dusty little time capsule

Is this worth watching?

Honestly, only if you have a thing for vintage oddities or just need to kill five minutes with something that feels like it was dug out of a literal attic. If you need a narrative or, heaven forbid, character development, skip this and go watch Public Hero Number 1 instead.

It’s a bizarre little short. It doesn’t try to be anything other than a collection of random facts brought to life. Kind of like the Film 18 shorts, but way more focused on the bizarre.

The highlight reel

The animal surgeon bit was... a lot. It’s definitely not the kind of thing you’d see on TV today. The wooden horses? Those were just funny. Seeing people train on stationary wooden frames for the British cavalry looks like a fever dream now. 🐎

There’s this one segment about hiding objects inside an unlaid egg. I sat there for a solid minute just wondering why. Who was this for? Who was sitting around in the early 20th century thinking, 'You know what I really need? A secret compartment inside a chicken.' It’s the kind of detail that makes you realize how much weirder people used to be.

Notes from the couch

• The grain is heavy. It feels like watching through a screen door.
• No music to speak of, really. Just the sound of your own confusion.
• It reminds me a bit of the random stuff in The Pioneers, just minus the actual story.

The whole thing feels disjointed, but that’s the charm, I guess. It isn’t trying to impress you. It’s just showing you things. Sometimes that’s enough. Other times, you just wish it would stop lingering on the egg surgery. 🥚

It’s not a masterpiece. It’s barely a movie. But it exists, and that’s about all you can say for it. Maybe watch it if you're bored enough to try anything.