3/18/2024 0 Comments Countdown till midnight 2021No one had ever heard of or seen anything like the launch before-or the countdown. The countdown associated with rocket launches had its origins in the Weimar Republic, where Fritz Lang’s 1929 film Woman in the Moon featured an extended countdown to a moon rocket launch. The blast-off was followed by astronaut Alan Shepard saying, “Roger, liftoff and the clock has started.” Time did not end, as apocalyptic countdowns had threatened instead, a new clock began. Some 45 million Americans watching the national nightly news heard the countdown to the successful launch of America’s first manned space flight. The televised countdowns of the 1950s, whether real or fictional, were frightening temporal experiences in which time was distended and stretched, and then extinguished.īut on May 5, 1961, the countdown got its first major positive association. At the very end he intones ‘minus 10 seconds, minus 5 seconds and minus 4 seconds’ and so on down to the moment of the explosion.”Ī few years later, Alfred Hitchcock domesticated the atomic countdown in the 1957 made-for-television movie Four O’Clock, transplanting it into the basement of a suburban home wired with explosives in the minutes and seconds before the eponymous time. A 1953 San Francisco Examiner article reported on an atomic bomb test in the nearby Nevada desert: “ designated official on a loudspeaker and short-wave radio hookup announces at intervals the time remaining before the explosion. In the years that followed, these same scientists were the ones who brought the term “count down” to the American lexicon. Notably, in 1947, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists introduced the Doomsday Clock, which to this day provides a visual reckoning of just how close we are to apocalypse. Though disaster has always been a part of American life, the threat of nuclear annihilation introduced pervasive existential fears. Both of these countdown types took form during the Atomic Age. Today, we wonder how much time we have until the next Covid-19 variant, natural disaster or terrorist attack. But there are also “apocalyptic countdowns,” in which after time runs out, disaster ensues. The wait for the new year-with its predictions, resolutions and parties-is typically generative, optimistic and hopeful. The New Year’s Eve countdown might be characterized as a “genesis countdown”: After time runs out, it starts over again. How, then, did countdowns go from almost nonexistent to ubiquitous in the latter half of the 20th century? And why are we so drawn to them now, especially to mark one year’s end and another’s beginning?Ĭountdowns as we know them today serve many purposes. Celebrations and midnight kisses on December 31, of course. The seeds planted through numerous conversations and events promise ambitious plans for this brand-new series that’s quickly ramping up to be a breakout hit.Ĭountdown to Midnight is high octane entertainment concocted with a tasty recipe for big-screen action extravaganza and enthralling storytelling that brings a fresh change to a familiar concept.Few people counted down to anything until the 1960s and 1970s-and yes, that included the new year. Dale Brown keeps the momentum rolling constantly with no slow moments.Īlong with the action, Dale Brown enumerates a remarkable roster of characters alongside Nick Flynn that compliment Flynn’s character development as well as stand equally strong on their own merits. One notable bike chase has Flynn zooming past flying bullets as he navigates through enemy lines. The action hits fast and hard as Flynn runs and guns with his Glock 19 and his wits on all sorts of vehicles. Nick Flynn is a throwback to the earlier devil-may-care protagonists, with a continuous dose of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he undertakes bold combat maneuvers and tactics from skiing under sniper fire to infiltrating an enemy ship in heavy storm with experimental wingsuits. Flynn and his teammates must uncover the true nature of the bold threat before its fruition. On his first official mission, Flynn’s contact is assassinated and Flynn is caught in a web of shadows and conspiracies pointing to an alliance between Iran and Russia with an enigmatic goal. Dale Brown strikes again with an energetic and adventurous thriller that catapults readers into high adrenaline rush of Clive Cussler’s Hollywood-styled explosive scenarios without venturing too far off technical and tactical authenticity.Ĭountdown to Midnight evolves Nick Flynn from a former Air Force captain to a budding spy working for a clandestine organization, Four, comprised of retired intelligence members from different nations with the singular goal of maintaining peace.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |