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🆕 blog! “Book Review: Surely You Can't Be Serious - The True Story of Airplane!”
★★⯪☆☆

This is a hugely extended version of Will Harris' "An oral history of Airplane". It goes through the pre-history of the project, how it eventually got made, and the aftermath. In many ways, it is like an old-fashioned DVD extra. The whole book consists of…

👀 Read more: https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/01/book-review-surely-you-cant-be-serious-the-true-story-of-airplane/
⸻
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Book Review: Surely You Can't Be Serious - The True Story of Airplane!

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/01/book-review-surely-you-cant-be-serious-the-true-story-of-airplane/

This is a hugely extended version of Will Harris' "An oral history of Airplane". It goes through the pre-history of the project, how it eventually got made, and the aftermath. In many ways, it is like an old-fashioned DVD extra. The whole book consists of snippets of interviews with the cast, crew, and various talking heads.

Like all DVD special features, it is fairly sycophantic. Yes, there are some good-natured swipes at the people who passed on the script, but it is a bit of a Hollywood love-in. The self-deprecating humour is there to make people look classy - for example:

Eisner’s also the one who once said, “If I had green-lit every movie I’ve passed on and passed on every movie I green-lit, my track record would probably be about the same.”

About the only time it gets into anything other than "gooly-gee how lucky are we" is a small section talking about the star of one of their other films - the notorious murderer OJ Simpson:

David: I directed him in the Naked Gun movies. Although he actually improved with each film, his acting remained a lot like his murdering — he got away with it, but no one really believed him.

Some of the commentary is a bit perfunctory. Do we really need to know that Quentin Tarantino liked the movie? It's nice, I guess. Tim Allen bemoaning the state of comedy today lands like a turd in a punchbowl.

The photos throughout are good - especially those showing how the framing of certain shots were lovingly ripped off from Zero Hour.

It is a fun and uncomplicated book. For students of film, it is always fascinating to see how the sausage gets made. Occasionally it veers into "IMDb trivia" and you do get the sense that most of the anecdotes have been retold a thousand times. Still, it is entertaining.

There is a bit of a glum streak running through it though:

JEFFREY KATZENBERG: Airplane! was not like anything else. And Michael Eisner, I think, felt that in his bones. Like, “Wow, this is really, really unique, and as such, is the kind of thing we should be doing!”

Where did it all go wrong in Hollywood? Why are the people who made their name with weird films now content to pump out mediocrity?

There's a tantalising moment talking about alternative takes and an original cut which was some 20 minutes longer. But, alas:

Sadly, Paramount threw out all the dailies; every studio did at that time. All those reels took physical space that they needed on the lot, so they threw them out, including Airplane! Although I’m pretty sure they kept the outtakes from The Godfather.

Certainly worth flicking through if you're a fan of the film, but hardly revelatory.

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Recently I've had the pleasure of reviewing Feral Heart's new book 'The Empath's Survival Blueprint'. It's an informative guide of healing what you've overdone. And that's being over Empathetic. #FeralHeart #BookReview #Empathy #GoodReads #MustRead #Healing #Reading #AuthorsOfInstagram #WritersLife

https://rickollie.com/2026/01/23/review-of-the-empaths-survival-blueprint-by-feral-heart/?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=jetpack_social

Qamar Ahmed's Book Requires Reading Impact Through Chapters Arrangement

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqPGKkeutyo

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Book review: “Taoism for Beginners” by Elizabeth Reninger

“The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”

It’s almost a cliché to start any discussion of Taoism with a reference to the iconic first sentence of Tao Te Ching. Written by the legendary Chinese sage Lao Tzu (or by a diverse group of later followers around the 4th century BCE, as scholars now generally believe), this text remains one of the key sources on Taoism — an ancient Chinese synthesis of philosophy and religion based on the notion of living in harmony with the Tao, the ultimate principle behind all existence.

If you’ve heard of yin and yang, wu wei, qi gong or tai chi — these are all originally Taoist principles and practices. During the subsequent centuries, schools of Taoism merged and blended with Buddhism and Confucianism, adding to the cultural melting pot that was mediaeval China. Yet, there has always remained a distinctly Taoist element, recognisable in various — sometimes very subtle — differences from the other two religions / philosophies.

As with any ancient tradition with thousands of years of history and countless schools and sects, Taoism too can seem difficult to understand. Which is where introductory-level books come in handy! In this post I’ll present one that I’ve just finished reading, namely Elizabeth Reninger’s “Taoism for Beginners.”

Elizabeth Reninger is a freelance writer, poet and Taoist practitioner currently based in Boulder, Colorado. Her book “Taoism for Beginners,” subtitled Understanding and Applying Taoist History, Concepts, and Practices, is a slim volume consisting of the following seven chapters:

1. What is Taoism?
2. Core Concepts
3. Core Teachings
4. Approaches to Taoist Practice
5. Common Myths and Misconceptions
6. Taoist Schools and Lineages
7. Taoism Today

There’s also a useful reading list for further study, as well as the appendix at the back of the book. 

It‘s written in a casual, almost informal, style that may be helpful to those who are otherwised intimidated by the typically rigid strictures of academic writing. The author doesn’t ignore or skip over difficult or complicated topics, but she will simply point out that it takes years of consistent practice to full understand certain things. Fair enough, although I suspect some readers would have preferred a more thorough and slightly more detailed approach.

Is the brevity and lack of in-depth treatment of Taoism a weakness of this book? I think not, as it’s clearly aimed at total beginners who probably wouldn’t have benefitted from too much attention to detail and nuance. Reninger provides a clear and concise overview, with some practical advice for those who choose to spend more time exploring Taoism, ancient and/or modern. Having finished the book, I was definitely eager for more, which is a good sign!

I feel an important point here is that Taoism isn’t simply a school of thought and a matter of intellectual learning. It’s also an actual practice grounded in the body; the physical aspect of harmonizing with the Tao cannot be overestimated. No book can teach you qi gong, and no amount of theory can be a substitute for personal practice. (Needless to say, the same goes for other religions and their practices.)

This little book is something you’ll be able to finish in one or two sittings. It will provide you with the basics and offer a kind of roadmap for further exploration. It’s written in an unassuming and inviting way, that will at least spark some curiosity.

Four stars out of five.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

Elizabeth Reninger (official website)

Taoism (entry in Encyclopaedia Britannica)

COVER IMAGE CREDIT

Front gate of the Yuanxuan Taoist Temple in Guangzhou, China. Fei Wang via Pexels.

NOTES

I’m a freelance language tutor (English, Latin, Classical Greek), researcher, and a literary scholar currently based in Belgrade, Serbia.  

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