This month, Stanley Kubrick's sci-fi masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, turns 50. In an interview with LionsRoar.com, Justin Simien talked about how Buddhism and Kubrick both challenge one's ego without attacking it — a strategy that later leaked in his own series, Dear White People. Sam Littlefair: You say that you try to acknowledge that there’s no right and wrong in Dear [...]
Watch the trailer for Judd Apatow’s HBO documentary “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling”
The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling will explore the late comedian's life, comedy, and wisdom. The trailer for The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling—Judd Apatow’s HBO documentary about the life and wisdom of late comedian Garry Shandling—was released Thursday. Judd Apatow, who directed the film, considers Shandling his most important mentor, dubbing him his “comedy Buddha.” [...]
“Lost” actor Daniel Dae Kim developing Buddhist detective TV series
Actor, director, and producer Daniel Dae Kim is developing a new television show about a Buddhist detective through his production company, 3AD, reports Buddhist Door. The show, titled First Rule of Ten, is based on a series of "spiritual fiction" mystery novels by Gay Hendricks and Tinker Lindsay, published by Hay House. As Deadline reports, the series follows Tenzing [...]
Judd Apatow, HBO to share “The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling” in March 2018
Judd Apatow's documentary about the life and wisdom of the comedian Garry Shandling — who died in 2016 — will air in two parts in March. For a while now, there have been rumblings about filmmaker and comedian Judd Apatow developing a documentary film about his friend, the late, and truly great Garry Shandling -- comedian, TV pioneer, and yes, serious Zen Buddhist. Now, I'm [...]
Twin Peaks, in key new episode, nods to Buddhism again
Unpacking the Buddhist reference in episode 14 of Twin Peaks: The Return. Twin Peaks' eccentric, upstanding FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper may well have been on to something when, twenty-five years ago, he tried to employ “deductive technique, Tibetan method, instinct, and luck” in unraveling the mystery of Laura Palmer's murder. That was way back in the show's third episode, [...]
“Silicon Valley” Goes to Tibet
Two characters from Mike Judge's hit HBO comedy visit a Buddhist monastery on a trip that's less about enlightenment, more about entitlement. What happens next? Rod Meade Sperry needs to know. Spoilers and cuss-words ahead. I had the DVR on pause, queued up, as my partner came into the room. “Watch this,” I told her, and pressed play on the closing scene of last night’s [...]
“Dear White People” creator Justin Simien talks Buddhism, empathizing with haters
One element of Simien’s identity isn’t obvious in his Netflix hit: Buddhism. But it’s there. Talking to Justin Simien, it’s clear that the characters in his show, Dear White People, come from within. Each episode of the Netflix comedy, which debuted last month, follows a different character at a fictional Ivy League college in the aftermath of a blackface party on campus. [...]
The Mushy, Pseudo-Mystical World of Marvel’s Iron Fist
Sam Moore on the Buddhist superhero's trope-packed new Netflix series. (Warning: spoilers ahead!) Now a much-discussed (and derided) Netflix series, Iron Fist began as a Marvel comic created in 1973 by Gil Kane and Roy Thomas. Its lead (and man behind the superhero’s mask) is Danny Rand who, after a family tragedy — in the comics a climbing accident; the show a plane crash [...]
If you watch TV, you should be watching The Good Place
NBC's hit comedy series, "The Good Place," which returns tonight, offers a refreshingly sharp and real approach to the great matter of life and death. Manny Jacinto and Kristen Bell are fakin' it 'til they make it in The Good Place. NBC's hit comedy series, The Good Place, has quite the pedigree. It stars Kristen Bell and Ted Danson (and a whole host of perhaps lesser [...]
Luke Wilson tells Jimmy Fallon he looks like Chögyam Trungpa
Last night on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, Luke Wilson pulled out The Pocket Chögyam Trungpa, which, he says, he purchased in a new age bookstore in Canada. "I've been carrying this around for a year now," Wilson tells Fallon. "The guy reminded me of you." "He's not bad," responds Fallon, laughing. "He's a good-looking guy." Wilson jokes that he reads the book when [...]
