AFI: Eastwood, YouTube, O.J. Significant in '06

Most people probably want to forget that whole O.J./Judith Regan/Fox debacle, but that doesn't mean the whole thing wasn't a learning experience that impacted the world of the moving image.   

Or so says the American Film Institute, which included Regan's terminated book and TV interview project with erstwhile murder suspect O.J. Simpson as one of 2006's Moments of Significance. 

Also making the grade were:

• Clint Eastwood offering up not one, but two critically acclaimed films depicting the harrowing Battle of Iwo Jima
• The poignancy and accessibility of documentaries such as An Inconvenient Truth, Iraq in Fragments and When the Levees Broke
• YouTube becoming the preeminent site for user-generated content on the Web
• Stephen Colbert's appearance at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner and the speed with which the video became an Internet sensation
• The continuing rise of digital entertainment
• The big four networks fighting the FCC over its crackdown on "indecency"
• The death of director Robert Altman, whose career spanned more than 50 years 

A 13-person jury selected the eight figurative moments out of a pool that included "accomplishments of considerable merit; influences with either a positive or negative impression; trends, either new or re-emerging; anniversaries or memorials of special note; and/or movements in new technologies, education, preservation, government or other areas that impact the art of film, television and digital media." 

Apparently, Britney and Lindsay hitting the town without their underpants didn't make the cut, although that certainly was a learning experience for one and all. 

Far more deserving, however, were the artistic achievements and industry trends that the AFI chose to focus on. 

Deeming him a "national treasure," the perennial list-making organization singled out Eastwood for releasing both Flags of Our Fathers and the Japanese-language Letters from Iwo Jima this year. The auteur, who is facing off against himself for Best Director come Golden Globe time, has been widely praised for his intense and intimate portrayals of both sides of the bloody World War II battle that came after five Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman planted the American flag atop Mt. Suribachi. Letters from Iwo Jima also made the AFI's list of the year's top 10 movies. 

Meanwhile, Spike Lee's Hurricane Katrina documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts; Davis Guggenheim's global warming treatise, An Inconvenient Truth, starring presidential candidate turned hip environmentalist Al Gore; James Longley's self-explanatory Iraq in Fragments; and HBO's Baghdad ER "best illustrated the power of film and television to bring us together as a global audience—and, with hope, to affect change," the AFI noted. 

Also according to the AFI's list, the growth and popularity of YouTube "signifies the awakening of an age when the audience is both producer and distributor." From Virginia Senator George Allen directing a racial slur at a man of Indian decent to the uncensored version of Saturday Night Live's recent "Dick in a Box" sketch to a nearly three-minute clip of a teenager besting his high school's Christmas tree in a rather one-sided physical joust, YouTube has indeed become the one-stop melting pot for all the best and worst that user-generated content has to offer. 

On a similar note, AFI also recognized the "fusion of journalism and comedy" and the way in which the Internet has become the channel to disseminate news.

Starting with Stephen Colbert talking about reality's "well-known liberal bias" at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner—and how the video of him dryly hamming it up coupled with the less than amused looks from the Bush Administration became an "Internet sensation"—the AFI stated that personalities like Colbert and their Internet presence provided "a defining shift in the way the 2006 midterm elections were perceived and discussed by a younger generation." 

But even though it's nice to be able to look at people's pet kitties on YouTube, most of the time we'd rather leave our entertainment to the professionals. And thanks to this next Moment of Significance, the pros have a number of new ways to reach us. 

The AFI marked 2006 as a "watershed year" in digital entertainment, with Hollywood heavies such as Steven Soderbergh (Bubble) and Morgan Freeman (10 Items or Less) experimenting with new methods of film distribution, the addition of thousands of television and movie titles on iTunes, and the overall increase in digital downloads and methods to access them. 

Moving over to one of the more controversial Moments of Significance from 2006, the AFI chose former HarperCollins publisher Judith Regan's scuttled multimedia deal with O.J. Simpson to publish the hypothetical tell-all If I Did It—speculating on how Simpson would have gone about killing ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman—and then conduct a two-part interview with him on Fox.

"The cancellation showed that a moral standard still exists for television, albeit a limit that had to be pushed to an extreme to be of note," the AFI stated. "That it was self-regulated, however, and not legislated by the government, is cause to celebrate." 

Yes, it is good that News Corp and Fox canceled the project due to the fact that it was a terrible idea rather than because the government made them.  

Fox—along with ABC, CBS and NBC—already has a beef with the government, anyway. The four major networks vowed to fight the heavy indecency fines they incurred from the Federal Communications Commission earlier this year, and they did just that. 

Although the broadcasters seem to be fighting a losing battle, with the FCC refusing to budge on its $550,000 Nipplegate judgment and President Bush's approval of a bill that raises the maximum per-incident fine to $325,000, there were some small (or should we say, "significant") victories to be had in 2006. The FCC has been called upon to provide a clearer definition of what qualifies as "indecent," and the agency favorably reversed two earlier rulings involving usage of the S-word on CBS' The Early Show and ABC's NYPD Blue.

And finally, the AFI cited the passing of M*A*S*H and Nashville director Robert Altman last month at age 81. The filmmaker's "body of work—both in film and television—reflects an exceptional diversity in genre, but always with his indelible signature…AFI will ensure that his films live forever."