Word: billboards
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Still, the high purpose that characterized the anti-Marcos uprising has dissipated. In 1986, behind the yellow, dusty walls of a local military camp, Aquino broke ground for a "People's Church" to commemorate the revolution. The only thing built, however, was a billboard announcing the coming construction. Months passed. Coups were attempted and failed. Soot gathered on the neglected, peeling panel. In the end, vandals defaced it, and a strong wind knocked it down...
...Should billboards stand in the way of progress? The question faces the frustrated citizens of traffic-choked Houston, where much needed $800 million highway improvement projects planned for the next five years have been indefinitely delayed because of a bizarre dispute among the city, the state of Texas and the local billboard industry. The state's highway commission, which had planned the construction, needs to move 123 billboards along various routes to new locations. But that would violate a tough antibillboard law enacted by the city council in 1980. The ordinance prohibits the erection of any new billboards in Houston...
...highway commission decides to dismantle the billboards, the owners would then have to be compensated under state and federal law for the full value of the signs. The problem is that in the eight years since the ban on new signs was passed, the value of the existing billboards has skyrocketed. The highway commission estimates that it would cost the prohibitive total of some $12.3 million to buy all the signs that are blocking construction. One billboard, which carries a Dewar's Scotch whisky ad and a promotion for Hilton hotels, is said to be worth...
Holly Hunter touches all of Jane's moods -- funny, flinty, vulnerable, bizarrely controlled -- before the opening credits of Writer-Director James L. Brooks' Broadcast News are concluded. At first, this protean display seems the equivalent of a Save the Children billboard on Sunset Strip: "Won't someone please nominate this girl for an Oscar?" But Hunter, 29 and 5 ft. 2 in., is no late entry in the prima donna sweepstakes. She is a hardscrabble sprite from Conyers, Ga., a dues payer from off-Broadway (Beth Henley's The Miss Firecracker Contest) and off-Hollywood (Joel and Ethan Coen...
Though the film does eventually eliminate some of its pretentious stiltedness, it's never exactly freewheeling. Part of this is due to Crouse's performance. Her face can be as expressionless as a blank billboard, and she's enigmatic from beginning...