Word: descente
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...fund he helped set up with a subsidiary of the Chase Manhattan Bank to attract celebrity dollars has disintegrated. And the once worshipful buzz has suddenly turned ugly. In Hollywood, a town built on tales of golden boys brought down, the wags are debating the reasons for his steep descent...
...odds were against little Keone Penn from the start. Born with the most severe form of sickle-cell anemia, a hereditary blood disorder that afflicts more than 70,000 Americans, most of them of African descent, he experienced repeated episodes of racking pain and high fever as brittle, sickle-shaped red blood cells clogged his vessels. At age 5, he was temporarily paralyzed by a stroke. Since then he has bravely endured blood transfusions as often as every two weeks via a catheter attached to his chest. Still the threat of devastating pain and life-threatening infections continued to shadow...
...growing intensity of Helen's eventual departure into insanity. The maternity scene is almost too experimental and strange; while the doctors are supposed to reflect robots, again, emotion creeps into the scene and destroys the rhythm between the dialogue and actors machine-like movements. Similarly, Helen's descent into the underworld, replete with an affair, does not reflect a change of emotional intensity but continues the linear progression of a dissatisfied woman. No new miseries are brought to the audience's attention; if Helen is supposed to be the outsider with feelings, then she fails, for her development is fatalistic...
...small shield is flicked up over the twin-engine control levers on the central console, and both engines switch off. Four seconds after that, the plane's speed brakes, panels deployed atop the wings rise into the airstream, disrupting the lift in an effort to slow down the descent. Suddenly, the plane begins to climb...
Investigators say the strongest indication of a deliberate act lies in what the airplane did. No alarms signaling equipment breakdown or other emergency went off before the autopilot was disconnected. The steep descent was steady and controlled. The captain would not pull his control yoke up while the co-pilot pushed down. There was no radio mayday and evidently no attempt to signal a hijacking. The plane's final climb may be explained by traditional aerodynamics or by a pilot's desperate effort to regain altitude...