(laughter) And then they're in love.
Hi, I'm Eden.
And I'm Amina, and we're talking about '90s films.
Maybe the best films ever, I don't know.
For me, the first thing I thought of was The Matrix.
I rewatched it and I realised the Matrix is a really stressful concept.
I didn't realise how freaky it was
that the whole world is essentially a lie,
and that we're living inside the Matrix.
I really hope it's not real because I don't think I could deal with that.
I would definitely choose the blue pill,
because there's this part where Laurence Fishburne goes,
'Would you like the red pill or the blue pill?'
- That is a famous scene, literally. - And if you take the blue pill,
you can just blissfully ignore the Matrix and go back to it,
but obviously Neo, Keanu Reeves' character, doesn't.
Essentially, it's about Neo, this guy, he's living in the normal world.
He's been looking, searching for this thing called the Matrix for ages,
but he can't really find it.
He's got this boring nine-to-five job.
And then he essentially finds out that the Matrix means
that the world isn't real.
All of these people are actually-, they're being controlled by AI.
It's closer to 2021 than 1995.
They're ahead of their times, basically.
Yeah, and it's just like a totally different world.
He leaves this fake world to go to the proper,
which is this cool '90s grungy world with all this, sort of-,
not steampunk, that's the wrong word, but this-,
It gives you that punk vibe, doesn't it?
- Yeah, the punky, chunky-, - The leather long jackets,
studs, black, short cut hair, everything.
Yeah, and everything's got this grimy green undertone to it,
and the whole marketing is just these numbers down-,
but also there's all of these iconic moments,
and I think that's the thing with '90s movies
is that you've got these iconic lines.
My favourite from The Matrix has to be,
he gets this thing implanted in his head
and he does this whole kung-fu thing,
and he wakes up and he goes, 'I know kung-fu.'
(laughter)
And just as someone who did martial arts as a kid,
I thought, 'Oh, this is so funny,' and also the classic,
being shot and the 'ooh'-, - Yeah, and then the gliding.
(gunshots)
I've never watched The Matrix but I know that's-,
Oh no, I have watched The Matrix, I lied.
I have seen it but a very long time ago,
but the scene I did see before I even saw it
was the dodging the bullets scene.
- There's so many-, - Classic.
It's probably been on The Simpsons, to be honest.
- Oh, it's been parodied. - So many times.
Also the slow motion thing where he goes up and like that,
that's parodied in Shrek, I believe.
Like, literally the first Shrek, they have that part there.
Yeah, it's kind of gone down into our generations now
and we take inspiration from it. - It's become part of the culture.
The funny thing about it is that you watch it now
and you look at the technology, and it's quite dated in the film,
all the listening to cassettes and the really chunky computers,
but then it's a film made in the '90s
and some of the stuff they did was absolutely groundbreaking.
- With a low budget as well. - Yeah..
Some of the cinematic techniques were created for that film.
But you were talking about, what was it, Jurassic Park?
Yeah, like, the same, the way that it was such a big thing
when they introduced that kind of technology,
like that CGI, in The Matrix and then also in Jurassic Park.
Steven Spielberg was such a big, and is still, a very big director,
and with Jurassic Park, I remember my dad telling me
about when he saw it for the first time and it felt so real.
Especially for the '90s, they'd never seen CGI just like that,
and I think it's that first scene,
the guy says, 'Welcome to Jurassic Park,' and everyone
is just completely shocked. - It gives me goosebumps.
Like, as shocked as the characters are in it.
They are looking at the dinosaurs and they're like 'this is real'.
The graphics still really hold up with that film.
I still think it's really good.
Especially, I'd hate to admit it,
but I hadn't seen Jurassic Park until very recently,
but I had seen the Jurassic Worlds.
So I'd seen that kind of very up-to-date CGI now,
very, very realistic,
and I compare it and I still think it is really good
and almost slightly better.
I totally agree, I think it's 100% better.
There's an interesting thing that Steven Spielberg did
with the aspect ratio, which is basically the size of the screen.
With the new Jurassic World movies,
they've got once which is wider and longer like that,
but with the original Jurassic Park,
they had one which was longer up this way,
so the scale of the dinosaurs was insane.
And you've got the seamless cuts from the CG to the animatronics,
so you have that part when they're in the car and the T-rex is there,
and then it walks away and you go through the windscreen
and it turns into CGI. You can't even notice it.
I was just as scared as I was watching that
to watching Jurassic World.
I was just as scared, I was on the edge of my seat.
No matter how it looked, it still gets you the same way,
and that's what's really important.
You're frightened, but you're frightened like a kid.
It's not too, too scary.
I think my little sister, she's never watched it,
but she would enjoy it so much.
It's such an enjoyable film.
It's enjoyable for everyone, it has a little bit of everything,
that adventure, that fun,
and that's what is kind of quintessential '90s, isn't it?
Who else did we really love in the '90s?
It's got to be the one, the only,
- Leonardo DiCaprio. - Leonardo.
(laughter)
In Romeo plus Juliet. Romeo and Juliet? Plus Juliet?
I think it was just trying to be contemporary, I don't actually know.
So Romeo + Juliet, it's the Baz Luhrmann version.
It's set in the '90s and he's sort of made it contemporary.
I'm not usually a big fan of Baz Luhrmann,
but I do think that this film is great.
They used to show it to us in school because they were like,
'We're making Shakespeare modern.'
Isn't it, because I used to find Shakespeare
very hard to understand in school,
and then when I see something like Romeo + Juliet,
it was just like, I could really understand it.
It was like a modern-ish setting of the '90s,
but they said it all with Shakespearean words.
Yeah, they use the Shakespearean language, which I think is good.
I think it's good to keep that, but then they also have
all the things that teens like, like the erratic, crazy,
action-style editing at the beginning.
And one of the amazing things about it is the prologue,
the part where they're like, 'In fair Verona, where we lay our scene',
blah, blah, 'from the two lovers' loins'.
Ooh, I know quite a bit of that. See, that's Baz Luhrmann for you.
They do that as a news report, and I was watching it again
and I was like 'that is so clever, such a clever thing to do'.
You're watching it and you're thinking,
'This is a teen movie, this is a teen movie,' until they die at the end,
and you're like, 'Oh.'
Oh yeah, I forget this is a Shakespearean-,
It's a tragedy and things go wrong.
I mean, to me, that film made Shakespeare quotable.
- Because it's difficult-, - You'd be like, 'Leonardo said it.'
Yeah, Leonardo said it and now I'm going to say it.
But because I'm dyslexic, I always really struggled
with Shakespeare and stuff, even though I loved the stories,
but it made it totally quotable for me.
There's this part where Mercutio dies,
and he lies down on the floor and he goes, 'A plague on both your houses!'
'You've made worm's meat of me.'
And for some bizarre reason, because of him and his performance
and the strange setup of it, that stuck with me and I loved it.
Also, you know,
you realise how soppy and romantic the storyline actually is,
because Romeo's in love with someone else at the beginning,
everyone always forgets.
But that's what it is when you're a teenager.
You'll think you're in love so much with something else,
and then you move on to something or someone else very quickly.
Yeah, very quickly.
But that's that teen romantic kind of film as well.
Yeah, so then in Romeo + Juliet, we have that iconic moment.
Romeo and Juliet meet each other for the first time, Leonardo and Claire,
and it's cute and it's iconic, but they are just-,
they see each other through a fish bowl
and they have this weird, sort of, moment (laughter)
through the fish bowl, where they look at each other
and there's just these fish, and then Juliet comes-,
- Their instant love connection. - They're completely in love.
I saw you and now I love you.
Juliet goes away, and then Romeo literally follows her around
and then they kiss in a lift.
It's like, I don't know where this came from
but it's beautiful, I love it.
Every time, I just want them to stay alive.
Shakespeare's timeless, isn't it?
Shakespeare's a cool guy.
(laughter)
Thinking of teen romance films, definitely Clueless,
but it was less romance, more just teen,
and it definitely-, I loved Clueless.
When I think of the '90s, I think of Clueless.
Also, thinking back to The Matrix as well, and even Jurassic Park,
they used all stuff that was quite-,
CGI and stuff like that for their time.
In Clueless, you have the virtual dressing wardrobe,
and it's kind of insane.
You're thinking about it and you're like,
that's something we don't even have now.
I don't know if it was made up but she was doing it in the '90s
and you're just like, this is such a smart idea.
Why did I not think of this now? - I love that part, it's hilarious.
And that outfit that she wore,
the yellow chequered outfit when she's walking down the hall, Cher-,
- Every Halloween, you see someone in that outfit.
It's even become a pop culture reference.
There's been music videos made out of it.
Oh yeah, the Charli XCX, Iggy Azalea thing.
Yeah, they fully, completely-, it's just everywhere,
you see people wear the outfit, everything.
Even the story, the Clueless story,
do good things by giving somebody else a makeover
when really it was her that needed the makeover,
but inside, not on the outside.
I think it makes fun, maybe, of the quintessential teen movies
and makes it more, like, has that deeper meaning,
and I think that's really nice.
She was kind of ditzy and blonde and rich
and that was the whole normal idea of it,
but at the end she had to make a change in herself,
and I think that was really-, I loved the idea of it.
It's not just a teen movie.
Well, I think that comes from a fact that I didn't know until recently,
that it's actually based off of a Jane Austen novel.
There you go, that's it.
I know, but I mean, like Romeo + Juliet,
you probably wouldn't have even noticed,
well, I obviously didn't know,
so maybe that's where the message comes from.
But it's amazing that they can make something
which seems so unaccessible to teens, like an old novel,
into something which is like that.
They did that quite a lot in the '90s,
like with, what's it called, 10 Things I Hate About You.
That one's also Shakespeare. - Heath Ledger.
- Oh, is it actually Shakespeare? - Yeah.
God, look at that. I didn't even know.
The '90s, man.
It still transcends, with fashion style and music,
into our generation now. - Yeah.
One of my must-watch movies of the '90s has to be Thelma & Louise.
Why? I've never seen it.
- You've never seen Thelma & Louise? - No.
It's an amazing story, it's about these two women.
I would say it's a bit heavier than some of the other ones.
They go out on this fun night out, and Geena Davis' character-,
it's Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon,
she basically nearly ends up getting raped,
but her friend, Susan Sarandon, saves her from it,
but ends up shooting the rapist guy
after he makes a really horrible, sexist, degrading comment.
But then essentially after that, that means that they're on the run
because they've killed a dude.
And at the beginning, if they had gone in to the police,
they probably could have sorted it out,
but they just continue on this sort of rampage of doing-,
- They're doing more and more crimes? - Yeah.
They do more and more illegal things, but there's this line,
I can't remember exactly what it is, but after they've killed the rapist,
she goes, 'We can just go to the police
and we can just tell them and it will be okay,'
and Susan Sarandon's character says,
'We don't live in that kind of world.'
We don't live in that kind of a world, Thelma!
She's basically talking about women essentially being
sort of like second-class citizens.
They get failed in the justice system, yeah.
Yeah, and that's basically what the whole film is all about.
- I don't want to spoil it. - Don't spoil it, but also spoil it.
But the ending is very satisfying because they-,
it's sad but it's also very empowering,
because they just decide to keep on going
and not get caught by the police or anything.
It has that kind of Bonnie and Clyde,
like, they commit a crime and then they run away,
like, even a kind of runaway film.
Yeah, very Bonnie and Clyde but slightly less sadistic,
and along the way, they meet all of these interesting characters.
- And they're friends as well? - Their friendship is so strong.
Which is a big part of it.
The whole film is about their friendship and really nothing else,
which is really interesting because you don't see-,
especially in the '90s, there weren't a huge amount of films
about really meaningful female friendships, if you know what I mean.
Obviously there's other people involved,
like Brad Pitt is very good in it,
he has this really strong Oklahoma accent
and he does this whole monologue about how you can shoplift or rob,
I think robbing is more the thing, but how you do it very nicely.
You, sir? Yeah, you do the honours.
Take that cash and put it in that bag right there.
You got an amazing story to tell your friends.
If not, you got a tag on your toe.
(laughter)
And then Geena Davis ends up going
and robbing some places really nicely.
Like, 'Oh thank you, I'll take that. Thank you very much.'
Yeah, but it's got some really super iconic moments,
very empowering, and great outfits.
Love a good outfit.
By the end, they're in these sort of band tees,
or Geena Davis is wearing a buttoned-up thing
that she's tied at the bottom, and these great sort of mum jeans,
and they're driving this car and they look so cool,
and it's just so iconic. I really recommend it.
You must watch it so you can see the end without me spoiling it for you.
I guess my must-watch for '90s would be
this amazing film called La Haine. In English, that means hate.
It was the first ever film I saw
that was foreign and was in black and white,
so I'd never, up until that point, seen anything like that.
So I was in dear shock, and also I didn't even know about, really,
the riots that happened in the ghetto areas in Paris in the late '90s.
It documented that, but also it told a story
of these three guys who were young. One was Jewish, one was Arab,
and the other one was a black boxer who was trying to make it,
and they all had very different ideas of how they should act in a riot.
Someone was like, violence to get whatever they want,
and someone was a bit more level-headed,
and the other guy was like,
'I'll follow whatever is making the best way.'
I'd never seen anything like it before.
Seeing subtitles was so strange to me.
Do you think it's a film that's good
if you've never seen a foreign film before?
- It makes it accessible? - Yeah, it's really accessible.
It's a great starter. It's not too long as well, which is really nice.
Obviously it covers a topic that was very real,
and I think the director has a great way of showing films that feel real,
like you're really experiencing it.
You get so invested in these three characters
because you see their lives for 24 hours through the film,
and then at the end, this heartbreaking thing has happened
and you're like, 'How could you do this?'
But that's when you know it's done well, because you are so invested,
and even-, it wasn't showing that whole life
but just that span of 24 hours, and it proper got to me.
That's pretty impressive if it's just 24 hours in their life
and you're feeling so invested with these characters.
I think the chemistry between all three,
and then also their acting was so strong, that's how it got there.
We only spoke about a few '90s films
but there are so, so many that we haven't touched on.
- Even, like, Groundhog Day. - So many amazing ones.
Groundhog Day, which started the whole craze
of repeating a day over and over again,
which you have in Happy Death Day and the Netflix series Russian Doll.
And then The Truman Show which is basically our reality now,
because everybody loves reality TV
and that's what The Truman Show was all about.
Worryingly so, and also The Shawshank Redemption,
which is literally one of the best films ever made.
So yeah, let us know what your favourite '90s movies are...
...in the comments down below.
(laughter)
There we go.