Famous film critic Ty Burr leaves the Boston Globe after 19 years

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Local “I hope to build a community of people who love movies and want to talk about them and share memories about them.” Ty Burr, left, and Wesley Morris, former Globe film critics, chat after recording their weekly Take 2 segment in 2011. (Pat Greenhouse / Globe Staff)

Ty Burr may be leaving the Globe, but it’s not yet time to kick off the career credits.

Burr, well-known film critic and 2017 Pulitzer finalist, is leaving the Boston Globe after 19 years. However, he’s not heading for another post: After nearly two decades of watching the industry change, Burr launched a Substack newsletter delivering movie reviews and recommendations straight to the inbox of modern moviegoers.

“I hope to create a community of people who love movies and want to talk about them and share memories about them,” Burr told Boston.com. “It might sound selfish, but I’ll write for people who want to read my articles because they’ve subscribed and there’s a reason they’re there.”

Burr has been around for a long time: he wrote for Entertainment Weekly before joining The Globe as a film critic in 2002. When Burr started, and for the first 12 to 15 years of his career, the focus was mostly on the first fancy ones. ; a streaming service casually dropping a movie was unheard of.

“The theatrical debuts are the big thing… and ultimately they go on DVD and pay cable, but the Vanity Fair covers, the feature articles, the reviews, it all centers around the theatrical premiere,” a- he declared. “Slowly this is changing over the last 19 years… Streaming platforms start to go up, Netflix takes off then Amazon Prime Video and everyone takes action.

Ty Burr’s author icon for the Boston Globe. – The Boston Globe

One of the reasons Burr started his new project is to help people who just want to watch good movies navigate the confusing world of streaming services. The industry is still too focused on premiere, he said, and it’s not the way people watch movies anymore.

Burr used to go and see premieres all the time, but over the years small distributors started sending DVDs or just links to watch movies at home. The pandemic has only exacerbated that, he said.

“When the pandemic hits, everything stops, the studios don’t take their blockbusters out and put them on a shelf for a year,” he said. “I actually went to my first screening last week since March 2020. All this time I was watching Home Links on my big screen TV which is okay but not the best way to watch a movie. “

Despite all of this change, Burr hasn’t stopped pumping insightful, witty, and creative reviews across genres. His review of “Serenity” in 2019 includes a hint for readers that relates to the plot of the film (you’ll have to read it, but here’s a hint: the first letter of each paragraph has a message). A 2010 review on “Love and the Other Drugs” was playfully written to mimic a prescription for drugs.

And there’s more. Burr shared his thoughts on his very favorite film, a 1974 French film titled “Celine and Julie Go Boating,” in 2012, simply encouraging everyone, but especially moviegoers, to take time for this cult classic. In 2015, Burr wrote a chilling commentary on the video of Sandra Bland’s arrest, breaking it down by the minute and documenting a part of the story that the mainstream media hadn’t focused on.

Ty Burr (left), Austin Scott, Hannah Cruz and Nicholas Christopher discuss the musical “Hamilton” at the Old South Meeting House in 2018. – (Jace Ritchey)

“I’ve always said that a film critic who only knows movies won’t be very useful, that all critics should know about life, because you really write about life through the prism of movies”, a- he declared. .

Movie buffs, or anyone stuck in a streaming content rut, can sign up for Burr’s newsletter at tyburrswatchlist.substack.com. There is a free and paid version, he said, and the paid version gives you more content. He’s also on Twitter, so you can check him out there.

Burr loves movies and he hopes to build a community around it.

“I believe in the two hour form, it brings people together physically and culturally,” he said. “Especially more than television, a movie is a coherent and concise little slice of a different reality, of someone’s different reality, and the more you see, the wider you will be and the more you will understand the world.”

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