Your socials may have been buzzing in the past few days with an exciting bit of resurfaced news. One of America’s most popular actresses—known for her girl-next-door persona and rise to stardom in the 1990s—is also a pioneer in technology. Sandra Bullock, Academy Award-winning actress and producer, purchased the first movie tickets online in a segment on Entertainment Tonight.
From The Net to the Web
True to form, Bullock’s endearing ways make the 1995 clip a treasure to watch 30 years later. In the segment, she visits a promotional website, MovieLink, launched by Disney and MGM to promote her new thriller The Net. Using a movie executive’s credit card, Bullock purchases tickets for a screening at a Hollywood theater. Along the way, she offers some decent user experience advice, suggesting the website should offer “double verification” for the entry of a credit card number. Once she receives a confirmation message, Bullock says: “Isn’t that a beautiful thing? Let’s have some champagne.”
Online movie ticket sales didn’t immediately take off. This June 14, 2001, article from The New York Times expresses plenty of skepticism, concluding doing so would be “useful only in certain situations (and only at theaters with a kiosk just for ticket pickup).
The Net itself was a pioneering film focused on cybersecurity threats, including hacking and identity theft. Directed by Irwin Winkler, The Net is a relic from the days when the internet was a novelty. The late Roger Ebert, an icon of film criticism, described the internet as a “trendy front end” used “as a hook” by the screenwriters. Ebert also described the film’s cyber villain, Devlin, as working for “employers [that] have tied up LAX, screwed up Wall Street, put six Chicago banks out of business and caused the suicide of a high government official.” Thirty years later, that doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
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Photo: Sergii Figurnyi / Shutterstock
This post originally appeared on Smarter MSP.