Burt's Buzz (opens in Cleveland June 6th exclusively at Tower City Cinemas)

[BURT'S BUZZ opens in Cleveland on Friday June 6th exclusively at Tower City Cinemas.]

Review by Pamela Zoslov

A gaunt, gray-bearded man arrives in Taiwan and is met at the airport by throngs of cheering fans carrying posters bearing his image. Seventy-six-year-old Burt Shavitz, the Burt of Burt's Bees natural cosmetics, is the unlikely focus of this rock-star adulation, which seems more suitable for Justin Bieber.


Shavitz is as flummoxed by the attention as we are. As he explains to filmmaker Jody Shapiro in the documentary BURT'S BUZZ, he'd much rather be at his farmhouse in Maine, where's he's lived alone for the last 30 years, gathering next winter's firewood and feeding the birds. “All they know is the image,” says Shavitz, who is indeed quite a bit different from his sketched likeness on the yellow Burt's Bees logo on lip balm and other products, an avuncular backwoods Santa Claus both friendlier and fleshier than the dour, taciturn Shavitz. He can't understand why people continually want to take his picture. “I'm contractually obligated not to say 'buzz off,' he explains resignedly. He'd just as soon point a shotgun at them.