Obscure Movie Of The Week: Real Men (1987)

When I first lived in the crack den with, among other degenerates, Jason Jorgensen, there were three things he always talked about: Jane's Addiction, Guns N' Roses, and a movie called Real Men (1987). I'd heard of the first two acts, of course, but he spoke so glowingly and passionately about the latter that he thought of it as the Citizen Kane of comedies. "It's the funniest thing I've ever seen....I can't believe YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT," he'd scream the only way he could at me. "We're renting it one night."

Turns out, his persistent pleas got the better of me, and I finally broke down and spent the worst $2.50 of my life to rent the video of the movie. I would have been better off giving a passerby the $2.50 for a Mickey's Big Mouth to go down the street and buy at Mum's Liquor than to endure what followed. Here's what happened: For the next 90 minutes, Jason laughed out loud non-stop, twice getting to the point where he was doing one of those out-of-breath, begging the movie to stop because the laughter on TV from James Belushi and the late John Ritter was about to kill him. I spent more time watching Jason than I did the movie. I still to this day can't tell you anything about Real Men, what it's about, only that it was some buddy movie where I didn't laugh once.

That didn't bother Jason at all, he was having the time of his life. And to this day, Jason is still the only person in my life I've ever come across who not only knows this movie exists, but has such a devout love and passion for it that the rest of us do for comedies like Caddyshack , Blazing Saddles and now Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy. I'll forever have Jason to thank for getting me into Jane's Addiction and a few other things we'll save for another post. But I'll never understand how he found such a big soft spot in his heart for Real Men.