As 2014 comes to a close, we take a moment at Geeks Of Doom to remember all the fallen entertainment figures in film and television who left us this year. This year, we gave a farewell to a large array of heavyweights, cult heroes, pioneering figures, and sentimental favorites who were among those who have passed on in a physical sense, but leaving the memories, the ones that they made in the past and the ones each of their fans have in regards to them.

Character actor James Rebhorn, who was a familiar face on many film and television productions, died at his home on Friday after a long battle with melanoma, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 65.

With a bony thin, wiry build and with eyes that could belie either soft characters or hard ones, the Philadelphia native became a reliable utility player in Hollywood, as evidenced by the myriad of roles he took on ranging from sitcoms (30 Rock) to playing a take-no-prisoners serial killer on Law and Order (as well as returning to the show with the reoccurring role recurring role of a defense attorney). He played a major role in sitcom history, as it was his district attorney character who prosecuted Jerry, George, Elaine, and Kramer in the 1989 2-part series finale of Seinfeld.

The Box
DVD | Blu-ray
Directed by Richard Kelly
Starring Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, Frank Langella, Sam Oz Stone, James Rebhorn
Warner Home Video
Release Date: February 23, 2010

Your home is a box. Your car is a box on wheels. You drive to work in it. You drive home in it. You sit in your home, staring into a box. It erodes your soul, while the box that is your body inevitably withers… then dies. Where upon it is placed in the ultimate box, to slowly decompose.

Place yourself in this situation for just a moment: a mysterious man with a disfigured face and friendly demeanor shows up at your doorstep. The man has but a very simple offer for you: there’s a box with a button on it; push the button once, and you will receive one million dollars in cash and tax-free. The only trade-off is that if you accept this offer, someone somewhere on the planet that you do not know will somehow die. It could be a child; it could be a serial killer.

Do you push the button?

Before even beginning The Box, I pondered this question many times over. It could perhaps be the perfect psychological question to ask, and I doubt anyone could truthfully answer it unless the choice was sitting in front of their eyes, waiting for a decision to be made. It seems to me that simply too much is on the line to make that kind of choice, but when certain people are in certain situations in life… consciences can vary greatly.