Friday, June 24, 2005

It'll probably be fixed by the time you read this.

From David Edelstein's review of Bewitched, in Slate, 4:15 p.m., June 23:

I liked the snazzy Steve Lawrence vocal of the Bewitched theme, but using R.E.M.'s impassioned "Everybody Hurts"—written by Michael Stipe after the suicide of Kurt Cobain—to underscore shots of Kidman and Ferrell feeling blue about their inability to pair off is an aesthetic crime.
"Everybody Hurts" (a song I've written about in the past--it's probably caused more suicides than it's stopped) was released in 1992. Cobain died in 1994.

Also from the review:
[Michael Caine] has the film's best joke, fuming about Isabel taking a part in a remake of show that "is an insult to our wife [sic] of life!" It would have been even funnier if his "way of life" weren't exactly the same as it's portrayed in the sitcom.

And the writing would be even clearer if Edelstein got the quote right the first time. Does Slate have editors? I'll volunteer.

PS A correction has appeared, as predicted:

Thanks to the many (many) R.E.M./Cobain fans who wrote to say that "Everybody Hurts" was written (by Bill Berry) well before Kurt Cobain's suicide. The Cobain-inspired song was, of course, "Let Me In." However, "Everybody Hurts" was intended as a plea to teenagers not to kill themselves (and was sometimes paired in concert with "Let Me In"). Using the song in a sitcom context remains insensitive, to say the least.

The other, more obvious error, is still there.

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