Rock mistakes you’ve caught in movies

That one for sure

 

Scott's English-language of Brel's "My Death" would have made more sense too...

 

Damn right!

 

Not a movie but a novel. In James A. Michener's The Drifters, the characters discuss Blind Faith's second album. (Would there actually was one!)

 

Another Seinfeld one:
When Neumann plans his millennium party he says he booked the place in 1978 and reserved Christopher Cross.
Cross’ album came out in late ‘79.
Minor I know but it ruins it for me.
It would have worked if they had him say 1980 or 1981, when CC was hot and everyone wanted him.

 

I have no complaints about that, as it's not part of the story - it's not like the characters sing it.

The songs in "Grease" don't "sound 50s" anyway. It's not like that's a movie that attempted actual realism - most of the cast of "high school students" were 60-years-old!

 

One thing I would hope we could all agree on; Jamie Foxx was utterly incredible in that film. And remember, at that time he was really only known as being a star of sophomoric comedies. Who knew he had that kind of talent?

 

As has been mentioned here, we're speaking about movies; fictionalized accounts produced for dramatic effect. But some examples come to mind where historical authenticity is sacrificed to the point of absurdity in order to maximize impact.
Let's talk about Cadillac Records, the scene where Muddy Waters has just moved to Chicago. Yes, he plugged in, and this was a massively influential period that changed the course of popular music. But when he sits down on the street corner and begins to play through an amplifier, it literally sounds like Hendrix, with effects, distortion, etc. What Muddy did would have sounded new, fresh, innovative, exciting and downright mind-blowing to those who were there at the time. But he wasn't playing "Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)."
And Eddie and the Cruisers. Good movie. Good soundtrack. But the music that band plays was not authentic to the period the movie was set in. It sounds more like Springsteen than 1963.

 

This is going to drive me mad now any time I see someone put on a vinyl record in a movie or on a TV show. I had never thought of it before and I think it is now my favorite kind of continuity error.

It does make me want to immediately fake it out by making a movie where someone takes a cassette copy of the Beatles "Rubber Soul", rewinds it, hits play, and "Norwegian Wood" comes on. So that when someone approaches me and says that "Drive My Car" should have played instead, I can say no, "Norwegian Wood" comes first in the cassette running order.

 

Yeah. Like all Oliver Stone movies, more "impressionistic" than factual (see also the lie-strewn JFK).

 

I've noticed that when people in movies put on a record, they always drop the needle in the beginning of the side, and never use the cue lever. Most recently I saw Lori Petty's "The Poker House". There's a scene where Jennifer Lawrence plays a 45 with a large centre hole on a regular turntable without using any kind of adapter. The music you hear is clearly not from the record.

 

The whole movie is one big error.

 

So was my initial post - sorry about all the autocorrect!

 

"Neumann"? Christopher Cross + Seinfeld in your very own thread seeking "rock" mistakes in "movies"? I just found 3 mistakes.

It's possible the anachronism was deliberate, in line with Newman's erroneous belief that the millennium would start in 2000. Either way, TV shows are frantic production lines, and continuity mistakes will happen. If the scene was ruined for you, it's best not to wonder why old man Sid Fields' record collection included Emotional Rescue.

 

Some of the films being discussed are fiction, plain and simple. But I think a film that is purporting to depict real people’s lives or real historical events has more of an obligation to be exacting in its period detail, even though it’s likely the script plays fast and loose with the facts anyway.

And even if the story is entirely fictional... there’s a line somewhere where you’d insist on some accuracy surely? You wouldn’t make a film set in the 50s and show a character using a laptop. At what point between that and “this record label was used in 1956 but not 1957” do you stop caring?

 

Why would Zeppelin be willing to give Fast Times “Kashmir” but not a song from Led Zeppelin IV?

 

In one of the deleted scenes, there's a bit that's not so much a mistake as a bit of a goof for us collector nerds to spot: Rob goes to a woman's house to check out her ex's supposedly exquisitely-valuable singles collection, and comes across a copy of the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" 7". In the book it was the quickly-deleted A&M release, which is indeed worth thousands of dollars, but in this scene the single is a French copy on Barclay, which is worth maybe $20, tops.

 

Oh but I did catch Journey’s Escape in that collection! I let it slide though.

 

The Kathryn Bigelow movie from last year, Detroit, is full of them. It is set in 1967, but several of the Motown songs aren't from that year e.g. Nowhere to Run by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Get Ready by the Temps, and Heaven Must Have Sent You by the Elgins.

 

If a filmmaker wants to make a film that's reporting factual info, they don't hire actors to play roles, they don't build sets, etc. They make a documentary. As soon as you hire actors to play roles, etc., you're entering the realm of fiction.

And there's a line where I'd insist on some accuracy? No. Not in the slightest.

And I've been on a crusade against that idea for decades. This isn't something I just came up with. Folks here are not going to come up with ideas I haven't heard before about this stuff.

 

Was it their second album or just their "latest" album (which is still a mistake, since it implies that there was more than one)? I remember catching that mistake too. I was also a little skeptical that six hippies would all love "Macarthur Park," but stranger things have happened.

 

Just for the record, I agree with you. Filmmakers who do fictionalized bio-pics are creating a story and to do that effectively, they often need to reshape the material to one degree or another. What matters most is not absolute historical veracity, but internal thematic coherence on the story's own terms.

 

Eddie and the Cruisers definitely sounds more like 1974 than 1963.

 

I agree,But... Oliver Stones The Doors was ridiculous. Sorry,I had to say it.

 

So if you made a film about the Beatles recording Sgt Pepper, or the Kennedy assassination, or the trenches of World War I, you would do no research and make no effort to at least approximate the clothes, cars, decor of the period?

I don’t think it’s as simple as “it’s fiction.” Even if you’ve taken dramatic license, the original events and people being depicted are not fictitious, nor is the general time period.