This week sees the release of the heavily anticipated Baz Luhrmann directed adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.  Luhrmann is perhaps best known for the jukebox musical Moulin Rouge!  (That’s their exclamation point by the way; not mine.)  So far the bulk of the pre-release buzz surrounding his take on the material revolves around it’s usage of present day music.  For those of you who slept through American Lit in high school, The Great Gatsby takes place during the Roaring Twenties when booze was illegal, cheap and everywhere.  Back then jazz wasn’t that weird, esoteric music that your grandparents listen to on NPR.  No, back then jazz was that weird, esoteric music that your grandparents would listen to while making your parents.

So Luhrmann, in an attempt to recapture that element of danger, replaced (or more accurately augmented) the soundtrack with modern-day, jazz-infused hip-hop from the likes of Jay-Z, will.i.am, and Fergie.  It was a bold choice designed to remove the lacquer of nostalgia which period-authentic music would have almost certainly coated the film in.  And while it does add an element of frenzy to Gatsby’s grandiose galas, the scenes in question ultimately play such a small role that it is perhaps an unnecessary distraction.

However, this isn’t the first time a filmmaker has purposefully used music that was inauthentic for the period of film.  (Hell, it’s not even Luhrmann’s first time doing it.)  This got me thinking about other times we’ve been treated/subjected to such a device.  So here’s your list… Movies That Feature Deliberately Anachronistic Music.

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid

Year – 1969

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How do you adapt one of the greatest American novels ever to be written?  If you look at the history of The Great Gatsby, the answer would be “Often, with mainly negative results.” Many people still remember the Jack Clayton directed, Francis Ford Coppola penned adaptation starring Robert Redford, Sam Waterson, and Mia Farrow, but even that film is considered flawed compared to the book it takes its name from. It was hard not to be excited when Baz Luhrmann signed on to have a go at the famous material. Reactions from the beginning were mixed, but after the casting of numerous stars, there was a sense that the film could be everything people expected it to be.  What could go wrong?

Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), our narrator, comes to us as an outsider among the glitz and glamour of Long Island in the middle of the roaring twenties. He makes a modest living in the hot trade of bonds, and has grabbed a cottage in the prestigious area of West Egg, positioned among the modern day castles of the princes and princesses of American wealth.  Despite not being one of the wealthy members of West Egg, he still has plenty of connections, his second cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her husband, Tom (Joel Edgerton), have a palatial estate across from Nick’s cozy cottage. Through them Nick becomes the middle man in a series of events between Tom, his mistress, the mysterious Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and Daisy. Revealing that money doesn’t solve everything, and that you can’t change the past.

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Thank god for Blues hockey, because Monday Night Raw was a snooze fest. I think that this episode truly shows how much trouble the WWE is in regarding lack of talent. It’s not good. With the exception of the Alberto Del Rio/Dolph Ziggler segment, everything felt lame.

The show started off with a dud when Cena and Ryback squared off on the mic. Ryback is god-awful on the mic, and Cena cracking his immature jokes do nothing but make him look like he’s pandering to kids. Add Vicky Guerrero to the mix, and you get a bad segment that has just gotten worse. Yes, the post-WrestleMania swoon is in full effect and this may signal a lackluster pay per view in St. Louis in just two weeks.

For the first half of the program, WWE touted that Paul Heyman and Brock Lesnar paid a visit to WWE headquarters. Wow! Brock Lesnar, a WWE employee, pays a visit to his place of employment! Who friggin’ cares! Now, it was kind of cool watching him destroy Triple H’s office, but other than that, the segment did nothing for me. Triple H coming out to the ring and giving his two cents, did nothing for me either. WWE made Lesnar look like less of a monster, and more of a big dumb animal.

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Enter to win a pass for two!

Sparks fly when Wade Walker (Craig Robinson) crashes the preppy Peeples annual reunion in the Hamptons to ask for their precious daughter Grace’s (Kerry Washington) hand in marriage. Wade might be a fish out of water among this seemingly perfect East Coast clan, but he’s not about to let himself flounder. Instead, in a wild weekend of fun, dysfunction and hilarious surprises, Wade is about to discover there’s room for all kinds of Peeples in this family, no matter their differences. Writer and first-time director Tina Gordon Chism (writer of DRUMLINE) joins forces with Tyler Perry to present a laugh-out-loud look at the family ties that freak us out… but bind us together with love.

Cast: Craig Robinson, Kerry Washington , David Alan Grier , S. Epatha Merkerson , Tyler Williams , Melvin Van Peebles , Diahann Carroll , Malcolm Barrett, Kali Hawk, Ana Gasteyer
Director: Tina Gordon Chism

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Call me a sucker if you want, but I can’t stop watching Netflix’s Hemlock Grove. It’s my Sunday ritual. That’s probably a good thing, because after some of the things that are brought to light in episodes 3-6, I felt like I needed to go to church.

Now don’t get me wrong, there are still plenty of drawn out, boring parts filled with horrible dialogue, but overall, the pace is quickened.

Roman and Peter have ended their friendship, as Peter has grown tired of Roman’s law breaking ways. Roman, upset that his only friend has turned his back on him, begins to lose his mind and do some not-so-nice things to an unlucky girl. He also continues his pattern from episode one, of cutting himself with razors.

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