Customer Reviews

December [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're a fan of Wil Wheaton, this is one of his biggest, best roles. It's a drama about 5 prep boys debating weather to join up after Pearl Harbor. The whole thing takes place during one night, December 8th 1941. Wheaton is taking a pacifist position, putting his best friendship with a patriot at risk. These boys seem to have a new emotional crisis in every scene, and unfortunately that makes their competent acting seem a bit over the top, and about halfway through the film it loses it's effect. However, you'll probably like December if you liked all of the following movies, even if it isn't as good as any of them: Stand By Me, Toy Soldiers, Dead Poet's Society, and The Emperor's Club. Of course they never do resolve who is right, or even tell what happens to any of them in the war; but they raise thought-provoking issues, such as can friendship survive diametric positions of patirot vs. pacifist.

DECEMBER is a fairly straightforward look at five New Hampshire Prep school chums who on a single night have to make a decision that for some is as easy as pie and for others is as terrifying as can be.Japan has bombed Pearl Harbor.The date is December 7,!941.Within minutes boys and men all over the U.S altered all of their plans for life and immediately entered the War effort (or so it is often portrayed!!!). DECEMBER takes a different approach; not everyone is gung-ho. DECEMBER examines how each boy feels about their prospects and motivations for entering WW2.

The problem with DECEMBER is that it is so centered on being a character study that it comes off more like a play for the stage.( Frankly, I think this film would have made a TERRIFIC stage play!). As a film, though, it is extremely claustrophobic, taking place in a dorm room, and the dialogue gets rather stale and tedious. In fact, I was squirming due to the lack of anything riveting to propel ANY action forward.What DECEMBER, though, does do well is to present the fact that not everyone in 1941 America was ready to drop everything to be a "hero." This, in itself, was refeshing enough to stand one viewing.

NOTE: the ONLY thing that DECEMBER has in common with DEAD POET'S SOCIETY or THE EMPEROR'S CLUB or HISTORY BOY'S is that it is filmed at a Prep School!!!

I thought this was a great movie. I liked how it portrayed the feelings of each young man in his decision to join in the war, or not.

Although I went to school with the director, I am not biased. Gabriel has always been a very talented story teller with a fabulous imagination. It would be an honor to have this movie in my collection. As far as language goes, it's pretty mild in comparison to many other movies out there. I'm sure that male students during this era used this language. It's not like swearing is anything new.

While it's healthy to be reminded that many (most, actually) Americans in late 1941 were opposed to entering World War two, this film displays a breathtaking sense of historical myopia. It makes much, rightly, of the emotional impact of Dalton Trumbo's pacifistic propoganda diatribe "Johnny Got His Gun" on the Will Wheaton character.

But as John Adams liked to say, "Facts are stubborn things." Mr. Trumbo was a militant Communist pushing an agenda. In the years leading up to World War Two, and after it began in 1939, Communists the world over (including in America) were ordered by Stalin to oppose the war and to oppose fighting Nazism- because to fight Hitler would help capitalist societies like Britain and France, then fighting for survival against Nazism. While ordering world-wide opposition to military preparedness ("militarism")to fight Hitler, Stalin was actually making back-door deals with Hitler to carve up Poland and other eastern European states. With breathtaking but typical Communist hypocrisy, when Russia was invaded by Hitler in June, 1941, Stlain ordered the world's Communists to agitate aggressively for a "Second Front Now," to releive Russia. War in defense of Poland, Britain, and France, according to Stalin and his sadly misguided Western followers like Mr. Trumbo, was senseless tragedy- but war to defend Stalins' regime was a morla imperitive- hence the hypocrisy of Mr. Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun," that inspires the Will Wheaton character to oppose avenging Pearl Harbor.

None of this historical context of late 1941 is remotely mentioned in "December," although when Pearl Harbor was attacked, the brutal fighting in Russia, invlving millions of men, had been going on for six months after Hitler's invasion of Russia. The teenage boys in this film speak familarly about "Pearl-" a place most Americans had never heard of and couldn't find on the map in late 1941, yet they are presumably totally ignorant of massive battles involving millions taking place on the steppes of Russia that began six months before Pearl Harbor!

One waits in vain for long-haired (his hairstyle is more 1967 Berkeley hippy than 1941 New England prep school) sensitive young pacifist Will Wheaton, who is filled with horror at the idea of signing up to defend American interest, to ask- as millions of honest Americans asked in late 1941 and throughout the war- "If it's wrong to fight to defend America against Nazi and Japanese aggression, where's the right in fighting and dying to support Stalinism, and Soviet Communist aggression-" which the US did, prolonging the life of the abhorrent Soviet Empire for another half-century. This was the very real confusion young men faced in 1941.

If this film was emotionally honest- as well as historically, contextually accurate- it would have made a far better story by putting the boys' moral dillemma in true perspective, including Dalton Trumbo's ideological orientation and motives behind writing the blatantly propogandistic "Johnny Got His Gun," and the tragedy and hypocrisy of American boys fithing and dying to prolong Stalinism.

that was the only reason I got this movie. It's an alright movie, but not one I'd watch over and over again.

This may be a great movie. It may not. I never found out because about 20 minutes into it the extreme profanity forced me to turn it off.
It is unlikely that five seemingly respectable young men in a high-end prep school in 1941 would swear so flippantly and constantly as these young men do. I think it was very unnecessary for the screen-writers to incorporate such language and tarnish a potentially good movie.

But, if you can stomach d-, h-, sh- and the like about every 15 seconds, by all means. Watch this movie. It might be an otherwise great movie depicting the civilian reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but be forewarned, it is NOT a family movie, and it does NOT deserve the PG rating.

To most of the public eye this movie could be seen as boring and wasteful, but if you take a closer look this picture it is truthful & emotional. The thing I liked most about it was its over acceptional cast. Wil Wheaton, the star from Stand By Me, was exravogent. Chris Young, also seen in Great Outdoors, gets my vote. Balthazar Getty, from White Squall, put on a wonderful performance. If I were Siskel and Ebert I would most definately not only give the movie two very enthusiastic thumbs up but also the cast.

I wish we had more movies like this one. It's a movie based on a tragic event that happened decades ago, but with a modern inflection. Unlike, the agitprop trying to be charmed into mainstream, this film is democratically correct. Cinematographically, it's studio style is commensurable with the emotional tone or "mise en scene" of German psychological thrillers, yet the storyline's characteristics are in tune with American philosophic points of view, as far as Western Civilizations goes. At first, I wasn't enjoying the film, but then surprising scenes made me stop and think. Now, I'm watching it every chance I get. (It's had a fecund affect on me.) There is a sense of diplomacy and comprehension that unfortunately skips a generation. This movie builds; not destroys. You have to see the movie up to the very end to understand how sound the moral is. It decently portrays man as a fully rational being. If it weren't for the profanity, I'd say that this film is adherent to the Logos.

I first saw this movie ten years ago when I was fourteen. At the time I was going through a hugely sentimental phase, and I was soaking up knowlege and ideas like a spongue. During this time I struggled a lot with trying to work out where I fit into the political scheme of things (I was an advanced child!) and this movie really gave me a leg up towards thinking about what war and it's implications meant to me as an individual. It shaped a lot of my ideas and it helped me to grow. I only managed to see it twice while it was on television, because it appears that it was never available in the rental shops near me, and by the time I started seriously searching for a copy to buy and own, it was out of production.

If you have not seen this movie, it is worth the purchase. The acting is superb and I have to say, truly unbelievable. Wil Weaton is a great actor, but I never saw him as truly brilliant until I had watched "December." Stand by Me is a great movie, Toy Soldiers was a great performance for him, but "December" truly takes the cake.

While I will confess (as I read other reviews when submitting my own!) that the storyline leaves something to be desired, I don't think that this movie is about *story*. It is about *feeling* and *ideas*. Not everybody is going to appreciate that or like that, but those of you who are interested in ideas and personal growth through the explorations thereof, then this movie is a must see.