Moving Target

Moving Target has just about everything you could want in a movie: Chynna Phillips, Jason Bateman, Tom Skerritt, John Glover, Jack Wagner, Robert Downey Sr., a teenage band that sounds like seven session musicians improvising a song for a cheesy movie soundtrack with no singer. A hit man that dresses like a character in a Miami Vice/Saved by the Bell crossover and who decides to gun down a family from a suburban rooftop with an uzi.

This is the perfect example of Made-for-TV 80s. Nothing about it bears any resemblence to reality, and yet you know all these characters as soon as you see them. Cliches cultivated by pop culture, that never actually existed. But you know them and you love them. Admit it.

 

You get great dialog like: "Hey, open up, you little pencil head!" and "I wanna be here with these zoids only marginally more than I want to die of malaria." In other words, it's just like kids really talked in 1988.

On top of Tom Skerritt, all covered with talent.

Jason Bateman is a heroic teenage musician who, after finding a hot young Chynna Phillips to temporarily replace him in his "next big thing" teen band, gets sent to summer music camp while he family is swept up in mob related intrigue. Bateman runs away from camp, only to find his family has suddenly moved in his absence. Suddenly people are trying to capture and/or kill. But he sticks it to the man AND he plays fruity Baroque piano.

His best friend at music camp is a black nerd, of course, who says cool stuff like, "Man, you got trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for big problems"

All in all, this film isn't going to blow you away, but is full of goofy 80s music, goofy 80s hair, goofy 80s clothes. Watch it while drunk with a bunch of friends who really love the 80s.

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Executive Koala

I only just recently found out that Executive Koala existed. For high concept weird, it doesn't get much more appealing than a guy in a plush koala outfit and business suit, with eyes glowing and holding an ax in his hand. Look at the DVD cover. That's what this movie is about.

Sort of.

This koala executive lives in a world full of humans. Also a white rabbit and frog appear, but these animal-people are anomalous. But not too bizarre to most of the normals, because people comment on how hairy Mr. Tamura is, but they don't scream, "HOLY SHIT! A GIGANTIC ANTHROPOMORPHIC KOALA!" It's kind of like seeing a black guy in Canada, I guess.

But this is only one prong of the weird. If you made all the characters normal humans, this story would still be completely bizarre.

It's the tale of mild mannered Mr. Tamura, a mid-level exec in a Japanese pickle company, the titular executive koala. His human wife disappeared three years earlier, and then his human girlfriend ends up murdered too. OOOPS. Of course one savvy detective is convinced Mr. Tamura is a killer. Mr. Tamura has no memories regarding the events surrounding the disappearance of his wife. And he totally does not remember murdering his girlfriend. He's in tears. HE LOVED THEM! There's no way this cuddly koala is a killer...

... or IS there? Has he repressed memories of his homicidal urges? It's twist upon twist upon twist upon HUH?

The only problem is that it's not all that interesting. It's definitely the only film of its kind of which I am aware. It's definitely worth a single watch for all fans of weird Japanese stuff. But it's really not as good as it should be.

"I'm not sure why this movie is not better."

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