99. Adrien Brody (The Pianist)

99. I'm going to admit that the reason that I saw this movie was not the fantastic director Roman Polanski (again, look for more performances out of this actor's director later on in the countdown), nor was it because the plot intrigued me. It was, in fact, that pucker with Halle Berry. Instantly, Adrien Brody had melded into my psyche as one of the great Oscar moments of my Academy-adoring experience, and I needed to know how someone as young and unknown as he could beat such heavyweights (and beloved ones by me) like Michael Caine, Jack Nicholson, and Daniel Day-Lewis (no I don't list the other one, as I am not a fan-go to imdb if you want to find nominee number five).

It was, in fact, a no-brainer decision on the part of the Academy after I viewed the sharp, character-driven The Pianist. The film surrounds Adrien Brody with a deft, insightful look at how tragedy can destroy a man. However, it is Brody who transfixes us. Those early scenes, with the cocky, talented Brody, lead us to emotionally collapse when the Germans begin to round up the Jews. The claustrophobia he feels in the ghetto, the way he uses silence to shout out loud in those later scenes. And of course, there is that infamous moment (at least infamous for me, as I often sight it as one of the most heart-breaking of this decade) where Szpilman plays the piano, reunited with his one true love, playing for his life, but also for his sanity. Brody knocks that out of the park. It seems shocking that Oscar would honor such a deft, quiet turn, but hey, sometimes they accidentally get it right.

For those who love the Brody, later screenings, are, well, harder to find, as this perf is pretty recent. I never saw The Village, because Shyamalan has been nothing but disappointment since that brilliant debut. However, I do have two favorite moments since then: Adrien's cocky Coca-Cola commercial, which ranks alongside of Kate Winslet's American Express outing as my favorite celebrity endorsement, and King Kong, where Brody isn't the standout (that would be the duet between Naomi and Andy), but the film itself is a treasure trove of great film-watching.