'You've Got Mail': Net-savvy to the max
Of course, Hollywood has a long and tangled relationship with the Internet, but most of those encounters were pathetic duds, at least where authenticity was concerned.
Computer aficionados of the time must have been amazed, for example, when Matthew Broderick used a PC with an analog modem connection to bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon in 1983's "War Games."
More recently, Brian De Palma's "Mission Impossible" prominently featured Apple PowerBook laptops. But the Internet software and network technology running on those PCs seemed to have been imported from a civilization far more advanced than our own.
'The Net'? Not!
Other examples: In "The Net," Sandra Bullock faced bad guys who used computer networks to erase her identity; and in "Independence Day," Jeff Goldblum hacked the alien invaders' system with nothing more powerful than a PowerBook.
Those movies romanticized a glamorous -- and mostly unfounded -- aspect of computers and the Internet: The idea of a lone hacker who, through sheer ingenuity, is able to bring the most powerful and important data networks in the world (and the galaxy) to their knees.
And as such, the films felt compelled to prettify the more mundane aspects of Internet use, things like what a user interface really looks like, or how you really connect to the Internet.
Goodbye, snail mail
But Nora Ephron's new film is another matter. The director wanted to update a 1940 romantic comedy called "The Shop Around the Corner." But there was one catch: The earlier film revolves around a couple who fall in love after exchanging anonymous letters, and in the 1990s, people just don't put pen to paper.
But they do write e-mail, and what's more, plenty of couples really have fallen in love and even married after meeting on the Internet, or on a service such as America Online.
That e-mail has become an accepted part of life is evident everywhere in "You've Got Mail," which takes its name from a friendly AOL (NYSE:AOL) sound effect.
In computer screen close-ups, we discover that the characters of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan really are using AOL -- the icons, windows and even the typefaces will be familiar to any of the service's millions of present and former users.
To get online, the characters go through the authentic AOL log-on procedure, complete with the buzz-and-screech of the modem. Ephron even uses that now-ubiquitous sound effect to set a sophisticated, knowing mood during the opening credits.
Much ado about nothing
Other accurate references to the cyber-lifestyle include a sequence involving Instant Messaging and Ryan's remark that with e-mail "you're more likely to talk about nothing than something."
Of course, the online world -- like the Upper West Side setting -- is idealized: You won't find any references to billing glitches or the inescapable pop-up ads that greet AOL users when they log on.
Plus, while the characters romantically associate the words "You've Got Mail" with a friendly greeting, many users might first think of pornographic spam.
Hanks and Ryan never have to try twice to log on, either. But AOL has been improving its service, after all -- so even that scenario might not be so unlikely.