Tamlyn Tomita Movies

Two young performers have to deal with racial stereotyping along with the countless other stumbling blocks to establishing a successful career in this independent comedy from director Tom Huang. Lester Niles (Anthony Montgomery) is a struggling stand-up comic who deals in dry observational humor. However, Lester is also African-American, and audiences and comedy club bookers are often puzzled about why his material isn't more "black," while his manager and half-brother Kenny (Joe Torry) urges him to sound more like Martin Lawrence. Adding to his frustrations, Kenny is in love with Nira (Sheetal Sheth), who clearly likes him but doesn't take him seriously as a boyfriend. Lester is good friends with Tony Chang (Tom Huang), an aspiring actor who is Asian-American and sick of getting auditions for roles as sushi chefs, delivery boys or exchange students. Tony's parents are tired of his career getting nowhere, his older sister Donna (Tamlyn Tomita) is a successful businesswoman who thinks Tony should quit show biz for a desk job, and his younger brother Danny (Dion Basco) is a would-be rapper and street racer. And Tony has his own romantic problems, as he's torn between Katie (Lynn Chen), a fellow struggling actor he meets while they're both working a children's party, and Amber (Emma Caulfield), who is blonde and beautiful but more interested in borrowing Tony's car than a long-term relationship. Why Am I Doing This? won the "New Visions" Award at the 2009 Cinequest Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Directed by Roland Emmerich, this mega-budget, special-effects-laden epic revolves around the onset of an international series of crises brought on by the long-term results of the greenhouse effect. At the eye of the storm is paleoclimatologist (a professor dedicated to the study of weather patterns throughout the ages) Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid), who voluntarily takes on the preservation of the world in the dawn of the next ice age and all the disaster that comes along with it -- violent hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, massive floods, etc. Hall must also contact his son, Sam (Jake Gyllenhaal), who was in the middle of an academic competition in New York City when the chaos begun. In addition to facing the largest-scale onslaught of natural catastrophes in the history of humankind, Jack, in his journey north, must contend with the masses fleeing south in an attempt to resettle in a warmer climate. The Day After Tomorrow also features Emmy Rossum, Sela Ward, and Joe Cobden. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

Asian-American playwright Philip Kan Gotanda made his directorial debut with this unusual crime drama. When two San Francisco police detectives find a very dead body in an abandoned car, a bit of digging reveals the man was minor-league criminal Harry Sado (Sab Shimono), who left behind his story in his own words -- on tape. Harry's troubles began when he discovered his partner, Mr. Jones (Philip Kan Gotanda), was ripping him off. Harry's logical response was to start ripping off his partner, which led him to hide out in San Francisco. There Harry tied to reunite with his children, which proved to be more trouble than it was worth, and met a mysterious woman who once lived in the apartment Harry had rented. Once Mr. Jones tracked Harry down, though, a confrontation between these two bad men was inevitable. Life Tastes Good was shown as part of the American Spectrum series at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Eric Koyanagi made his feature directorial debut with the triple plot threads weaving throughout this comedy. Romantic coffeeshop worker Isaac (Dustin Nguyen), hoping for his ideal woman, is taken aback by leather-lady Thaise (Tamlyn Tomita). Actor Troy (Garrett Wang), fed up with casting directors seeking Oriental stereotypes, faces further problems with his longtime girlfriend Cleveland (Lindsay Price). Rastafarian Slim (Darion Bosco), who smokes joints and recites Bob Marley, joins his gal Casey (Keiko Agena) to take evasive actions when they are menaced by a gun-toting heavy. Koyanagi links his episodes with ethical treatise re the quest for happiness. Shown at the 1998 LA Independent Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

A man's past comes back to haunt him -- literally -- in this thriller. After surviving a traumatic auto accident that took the life of a close friend and injured his brother, young Michael Sanford was sent off to a boarding school and didn't see his hometown in California's Sonoma Valley for close to two decades until he returned after the death of his mother. Michael (Brett Cullen) has inherited the family business, a winery, and he and his wife Diane (Tamlyn Tomita) try to build the business as they make a new home. But a psychotic killer has invaded the community, murdering a number of children, and one night Michael drives past the site of the killings and thinks that he sees more bodies. A number of people in town are convinced that Michael has never revealed everything he knows about the auto accident from 20 years ago, and as he tries to tell the police what he thinks he's seen in connection with the sudden rash of child killings, he discovers that he's now a leading suspect in the police's investigation. The Killing Jar also stars Wes Studi, Brion James, and M. Emmet Walsh. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

This two-part pilot episode for Babylon 5 was originally telecast as a single two-hour TV movie on February 22, 1993 (the "official" release date of March 8 refers to the film's Chicago TV premiere). Like the subsequent series, "The Gathering" takes place in the 23rd century, and was set on Babylon 5, a space station hovering in neutral territory which is used as a center of trade and diplomacy for a wide variety of friendly and hostile planets. As the space station becomes fully operational, the crew must deal with the attempting poisoning of Vorlan ambassador Kosh Naranek, for which B5 commander Jeffrey Sinclair is being held responsible. Complicating matters is the refusal of the Vorlans to allow any medical treatment for their ambassador. Written by series producer-creator J. Michael Straczynski, "The Gathering" features several actors who were supposed to have played recurring characters, but for various reasons were written out of the weekly version: Tamlyn Tomita as Lt. Cmdr. Laurel Takamisha, Blaire Baron as Caroline Sykes, Johnny Sekka as Dr. Benjamin Kyle and Patricia Tallman as Lyta Alexander. The pilot won an Emmy Award for special effects, and a Hugo nomation for "Best Dramatic Presentation" -- this in spite of almost universal damnation from mainstream TV critics. On January 4, 1998, the TNT cable network offered a re-edited version of "The Gathering", with a new musical score by Christopher Frake (replacing the one composed by Stewart Copeland), a handful of new computer-generated special effects, a number of judicious cuts, and several previously excised sequences, including a lengthy hostage-crisis subplot. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

The made-for-television Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes recounts the August, 1945 nuclear bombing of Hiroshima through the eyes of a number of survivors, including Japanese soldiers, citizens, and American prisoners of war. The film is partly based on Michihiko Hachiya's Hiroshima Diary. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

To Heal a Nation is the true story of Jan Scruggs (Eric Roberts), a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. In 1979, Scruggs, employed by the US Department of Labor, becomes obsessed with the dream of erecting a monument to those who died in Vietnam. In pursuit of this dream, Scruggs and his fellow fundraisers run up against bureaucratic indifference and public hostility-not to mention the reservations of certain veterans who disapprove of the monument's "radical" design. On November 13, 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial is erected in Washington DC-an intensely emotional moment, vividly recreated by combining dramatizations with actual news footage. Originally presented as GE Theater TV production, To Heal a Nation debuted May 29, 1988. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This sequel to the 1984 surprise hit The Karate Kid reunites Ralph Macchio as high-schooler Danny and Noriyuki "Pat" Morita as Danny's martial-arts mentor, Miyagi. Picking up where the first film left off, The Karate Kid Part II finds Danny and Miyagi making an emergency trip to Okinawa, where Miyagi's father is dying. Here they revisit Miyagi's childhood sweetheart (Nobu McCarthy), who, Miyagi believes, had been wheedled into an arranged marriage with loose-cannon karate expert Sato (Danny Kamekona). Little does Miyagi realize that the woman is still single; Sato is still around as well, however, and intent on resuming the fight with his old nemesis. Morita agrees; meanwhile, Danny is challenged by Kamekona's pugnacious nephew (Yuji Okumoto). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi