The Horse told you about this at the beginning of last month, but now here’s the trailer for the film, which takes place in Thailand. Thanks to the mighty Danny Fisher for sending on a heads-up with his somewhat sarcastic note, “Look! Tasteful Buddhist imagery!” See what you think.

No kidding. Well, kind of — it’s Funny or Die after all:

Here‘s the back story, via MovieFone.

Just a random little Hollywood thing: apparently this still from “The Hangover 2″ (forthcoming followup to the biggest comedy film of all time) has been released or leaked or whatever one does with a still to make it seem like it’s news.

Teaser-Trailer.com captions it, “Alan Garner (Zach Galifianakis) seems lost in meditation, but the two other dudes (Bradley Cooper and Ed Helms) aren’t convinced.” Okay, not much meat there, but still, it might be interesting to see where this scene goes. Galifianakis can be hilarious. Yep, slow news day.

The Hollywood Reporter reviews the new film Abraxas — which just played the Sundance festival. Here’s the opening paragraph:

The idea of a Buddhist monk who is a punk rocker seems impossibly incongruous, and that’s how his parishioners in a small Japanese town feel about it. But Jonen is no ordinary monk. He is a sensitive and troubled soul trying to silence the noise within. Abraxas, Naoki Kato’s exquisitely crafted debut feature, is that rare spiritual film that is funny and moving without being stuffy. Years ago, it would have been the kind of film that played well in art houses, but today, like Jonen, it will have to search to find its place.

Despite the Reporter‘s “Punk Rock Meets Buddhism” headline, punk and Buddhism are actually pretty well acquainted. But that’s cool. Anyway, read the whole review here. And check out the trailer at Sweeping Zen.

[Updates: Here's a new National Post piece about Jeff Bridges, Zen, and Tron: Legacy. And on December 14, I added a video of Jeff Bridges talking about Buddhism and Tron to my blog on Shambhala SunSpace.]

Tron: Legacy star Olivia Wilde talks in a new interview about how her character, Quorra, is inspired in part by Buddhism, and “coolest Zen Buddhist alive,” co-star Jeff Bridges.

Check that out here.

And for more from the Horse on the Tron/Jeff Bridges/Dharma connection, click here.

The mighty Sam DeWitt writes to send this one on:

I saw a link for Daft Punk’s music video “Derezzed“, which comes from the new version of Tron (“Tron Legacy”), and also looked at one of the new trailers and saw a few overtly Buddhist references.

Interesting (well, maybe…), in that Jeff Bridges maintains a practice and in a recent interview said that he talked with the producers about perhaps bringing some Buddhist ideas to the project. So here is a frame from the music video with someone in full lotus, then 2 frames of Jeff Bridges’ character, one in a kneeling meditation pose, then a close-up of him rising where they seem to have made certain that you can catch his mala beads.

You have the true Dharma/Eagle Eye, Sam. Thanks for sending!

It’s in Japanese. I don’t speak Japanese. But I do have a pretty good awesomeness detector.

Click the image above or here.

I’m a little confused just how much Buddhism there is or isn’t in this movie — see a review here — but it looks and sounds kinda promising as-is:

It’s apparently premiering at the Japan Society in NYC tonite, so check it out and let us know what you think if you can.

It would seem that way. Few had high hopes for this new M. Night Shyamalan movie — least of all Arun from Angry Asian Buddhist — and it seems that said few will in fact never be considered gifted prognosticators. Via Defamer:

“The Last Airbender is the tale of, oh, who the hell knows. It is basically Star Wars with a Buddhist ‘theme,’ and it stars Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show. You may remember when this movie was being made there was a fair amount of controversy about the cast being largely white, when the characters in the source material were Asian. Attention, Asian community: You seem to have dodged a bullet.”

Yikes.

And: Defamer reports that TLA has a 4% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. That’s out of 100 percent. (Meaning: very, very bad.) Defamer has also collected some of the stunning words of hate, which have to be seen to be believed, already racked up by the film. Update: the Rotten Tomatoes rating is now up to a staggering 6%! But then again, as punk godfathers the Minutemen once posited, “The roar of the masses could be farts.”

(Sorry. But Right Speech, it seems, is not a factor when people discuss this movie.)

But don’t get too discouraged, Mr. Mandvi — you’ll still have a career. Being in intentionally laughable projects suits you better anyway.

If you’ve seen the film yourself, leave a review. And do try to be nice.

This new film, showing now in California, explores Buddhism in the West, with Brad Warner, Diana Winston, and more. Check out the trailer here.