Strike leads AFI's list of 2007's top moments

(FROM THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER) — The ongoing writers strike, which transfixed and paralyzed Hollywood for the final two months of 2007, led the American Film Institute’s rankings of the year’s ”seven moments of significance.” The AFI called the strike ”part of a larger paradigm shift,” adding that ‘the ongoing digital revolution has upended conventional economic models, and uncertainty abounds when attempting to project how an audience will receive its storytelling in the years to come and how creators will be paid for their work.”

Also on the list:
· Films that have responded to terrorism and the war in Iraq, such as Angelina Jolie’s A Mighty Heart, Tom Cruise’s Lions for Lambs, In the Valley of Elah, and The Kite Runner. As the AFI put it, ”No other American war has inspired this deep a cinematic expression while the conflict is still taking place.”
· The introduction of the iPhone, seen as pivotal in allowing people to get ”content where they want it and when they want it.”
· The increase in tabloid-worthy gossip on conventional TV news outlets.
· The Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series, viewed as a landmark in high-definition programming.
· The proliferation of new summertime shows on basic cable that have helped change the traditional structure of the TV season.
· The deaths of legendary filmmakers Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, who happened to pass away on the same day (July 30). (The Hollywood Reporter)