So, for example if you have a column called start with the date
you can create new formula column and put the following into the formula field: DATE_FORMAT(Start,'%b %d %Y %h:%i %p')
that will take the date from column ‘Start’ and convert it according to your formula. http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_date_format.asp
The NOW(), CURDATE() can be used in filter as well, there is an example of that here Using DataSets to display Birthday
including the dataset tutorial linked in the first post.
So it would be good to have a mysql date format in the column ie what’s used by NOW() and CURDATE() - just so you can easily use it in filter if needed http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_now.asp
and then use DATE_FORMAT() in formula to convert the date and presumably display it in the format you want.