New Jack City poster
New Jack City

The Teddy KGB Award for the Actor in a Completely Different Movie

In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 01:31:27Read transcript
  • Chris Ryan joins for a cameo, credited as a reason the podcast started and a lover of this movie.
  • A new category is introduced, the Judd Nelson Award, for anyone who seems to be in a completely different movie than everyone else.
  • Nick Peretti is one of the all-time great jarhead cops, essentially John Bender as a narc; as a child this seemed the apex of undercover cops, so Pacino in Serpico seemed to bite Nelson's style. — Chris Ryan
  • Everyone asks what Judd Nelson is doing in this movie; the performance is a Russian nesting doll, with a favorite moment when he turns into a William Faulkner-style storyteller while drinking with Scotty after Pookie dies.
  • He is a weird racist ally who calls Scotty high yellow and lies on his bed in boots, yet kills someone for Scotty at the end; possibly made unlikable so he could be redeemed.
  • He delivers the key line that drugs are not a black or white thing but a death thing; the role feels like it could have been added in reshoots.
  • Johnny Depp was sought but too expensive; it was a comeback role for Nelson.
  • Peretti is either divorced or just out of a long relationship with a high school sweetheart, and lives in New York. — Chris Ryan
  • Imagined backstory: a cold-water apartment in Brooklyn, early retirement to fund an independent hip-hop label, an estranged daughter as an unfilmed deleted scene, and kinship with Jonah and Chelsea Peretti.
  • His introduction in untied boots and baggy jeans homages John Bender, and firing his gun in the man's house is baffling.
  • Making him literally John Bender would be amazing, with a sequel where Emilio Estevez's Andrew runs an HGH ring.
  • Estevez could also be the kid dangled off the bridge.
  • If Nelson had been going through a substance problem during filming, the performance would make the same sense. — Chris Ryan
  • He smiles at odd moments; the theory is he read the script and played a Martin Riggs type hoping for a Lethal Weapon-style spin-off with Ice T.
  • A recent Judd Nelson film about a man keeping his daughter in a basement was recommended after watching New Jack City.
  • The episode closes by congratulating Judd Nelson on whatever he was doing in this movie.