Rose Byrne

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: I Am Mother wears its influences on whatever robots have instead of sleeves

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 1st July 2019

    Once again I find myself pondering the meaning of life in a Greggs. I like the way the servers don't indulge in the folly that producing coffee is a lengthy, complex task. They turn around, press a button, and 15-20 seconds later a cup is plonked on the counter. That's not to badmouth the baristas of other chains - I'm sure there's a skill to what they do - but the process is needlessly prolonged with steam bursts and putting bendy tubes in milk cartons. The staff of Greggs understand the purpose of my visit and their role in it as facilitators of quick hot brown slop. To extrapolate that to its only logical conclusion, we can ascertain that they value above all the one thing that binds human existence and has led to this exact moment we are all experiencing in unison: time. It's 8am and already it has been a big day.

  • Spy

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 10th June 2015

    I'm not sure I understand how people continually lump Melissa McCarthy into the same category of comedians as the likes of Kevin James (actually, I do understand, I just choose to ignore it), because she's so much more talented than him it's barely a contest. Comic timing? Check. Pathos? Check. A habit of making her co-stars appear funnier by proxy? Check. These are not qualities you typically associate with Paul Blart: Mall Cop. McCarthy, on the other hand, is the complete package, and she furthers her winning relationship with director Paul Feig in Spy, albeit to not quite so winning effect as previous team-ups The Heat and Bridesmaids. The most important stat for the non-believers? There is only one [1] pratfall in Spy; Paul Blart: Mall Cop had 25.

  • Bad Neighbours

    Movie Review | Matt Looker | 1st May 2014

    In a matter of months, I will be a dad. And, just like Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne's characters here - two new first-time parents putting up with a college fraternity that have moved in next door - I worry about what will become of my social life. Will I have to miss out on all the fun things I want to do in order to take care of my child? Will I just never leave the house again? Will I lose my cool, youthful edge? Luckily, Bad Neighbours has shown me a fool-proof plan: just be a really fucking terrible parent.

  • A gif of the least ridiculous therefore best bit of the Insidious 2 trailer

    Movie Trailer | Ali | 29th July 2013



    A smart scare that uses blocking to hide a horror. All the rest is exactly what you'd expect from a franchise whose first instalment saw Patrick Wilson have a fist-fight with a ghost. (Full trailer here).

  • The Internship

    Movie Review | Ed Williamson | 1st July 2013

    The pre-jump: this is the bit of the review Luke tells me I should pepper with SEO-friendly keywords to get us as high up the Google search results as possible. Given that the algorithm will have been tweaked to suppress anything remotely negative, we'll need to employ some trickery. So the internship positive review vince vaughn brilliant owen wilson really funny google is ace.

  • The Place Beyond The Pines

    Movie Review | Neil | 8th April 2013

    One of the conditions of me joining The Shiznit after closing down my own unbelievably popular and hilarious film blog was that I would become the site's Gosling Correspondent: any and all Ryan Goslingness would have to pass through me before it made it onto the internet. The rest of the team made a bit of a fuss, but when I took my shirt off to reveal my full chest tattoo of Ryan's face, they soon agreed to all my demands. Turns out I didn't need to take my trousers and pants off as well, but still, in for a penny, in for a pound.

  • I Give It A Year

    Movie Review | Ali | 5th February 2013

    I gave it half an hour. 30 minutes is more than enough time to establish whether or not you're going to like a film and its protagonists: if you're not on board after the first act, chances are the second and third acts aren't going to be to your tastes either. To its credit, I Give It A Year starts where most romcoms end: the happily-ever-after wedding between its two leads – writer Josh (Rafe Spall) and prissy ad agency miss Nat (Rose Byrne) – mercifully sparing us the agonisingly tedious meetcute routine and fast-forwarding straight to the good bits i.e. the bickering, the adultery and the break-up. In other words, the bits romcoms are otherwise scared to show.

  • Bridesmaids

    Movie Review | Ali | 21st June 2011

    I apologise in advance, because I'm about to do my favourite film of the year a disservice by writing a fairly brief review. All you should know is that it is hands down the funniest, most enjoyable, most heartfelt comedy I've seen for years – not only is it probably the best wedding movie ever made, it's up there with the best comedies of the last ten years. If I must indulge the needless gender war it seems to have ignited, the girls of Bridesmaids have taken the boys of The Hangover to the cleaners. And then shot them.

  • X-Men: First Class

    Movie Review | Matt | 25th May 2011

    With Brett ‘The Hitman’ Ratner killing off half the characters in X-Men: The Last Stand, it’s no surprise that the franchise had to be rebooted, but do we really need to see a Bash Street Kids version of the mutant superheroes? And what can it tell us that we don’t already know? Well, how about the fact that Magneto used to be a globe-trotting Bond-a-like and Xavier was a beer-chugging ladies man? Admit it, Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart suddenly seem much more interesting…

  • Insidious

    Movie Review | Matt | 27th April 2011

    Instead of the usual screening experience hobnobbing with other critics and bloggers, Ali and I attended a special showing for Insidious that was filmed so that they could use shots of a glowy-eyed jumpy audience in TV trailers. Now that these ads are actually running on the box, it comes as no surprise to us that our mostly bored, sometimes laughter-stifling, mugs are nowhere to be seen in them.