My Award Nominations: Best Production Design

I tell ya, it broke my heart to omit just about every title that you'll see in the 'just missed' section of this post, but that's the type of year it's been for production design. Outstanding work in too many films. I ultimately had to choose those whose sets and environments were engrained into the narrative identities of the stories they were telling, but it doesn't make it any easier to snub some other worthy effort.

Anyway, enough mourning the snubbees. Onto the five that did survive this brutally competitive melee for only five slots in Best Production Design.

Mourning in the American 'Wild' and the Irish 'Sea': Double Feature Review

Late December is often a time of great celebration. No matter what your faith or customs may be, there's always an extra emphasis on enjoying time with our loved ones this season, as we prepare to close the book on one year and eagerly welcome another.

But, inevitably, the closing out of the year also becomes a time of solemn reflection, to remember what we've lost while cherishing what we still have. 2014 somehow feels like a disproportionately painful year for the filmmaking community; The tragic premature deaths of geniuses like Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman punctuating an already long list of cinema giants who finally left us after significant, fruitful lives.

Perhaps that's why it's been so much on my mind as I've frequented the movies this year. I don't want to be responsible for giving anyone a case of the holiday blues, but it's been impossible for me not to notice a similar thread running through a number of 2014's major releases; A thread about the way people deal with loss, process grief, and ultimately find closure; A thread about how mourning varies from individual to individual, yet is universally human.

A pair of distinctive and radically different films that are currently in limited release, Wild and Song of the Sea, suddenly seem like distant cousins when viewed through this thematic prism.