Azacitidine and Oxaliplatin In Treating Patients With Advanced Cancers Relapsed or Refractory to Any Platinum Therapy

Inclusion Criteria: * Patients must have histologically confirmed malignancy (solid tumor or lymphoma) that is metastatic or unresectable and for which standard curative or palliative measures are not expected to increase survival by at least 3 months * Patients must have an advanced cancer relapsed or refractory to any platinum compound; platinum-refractory disease is defined as disease that does not respond to a platinum compound-containing regimen or that recurs after treatment with a platinum compound-containing regimen * Patients must have had \>= 1 prior chemotherapy regimen; there is no maximum allowable number of prior regimens, provided all other eligibility criteria are met * Patients must be \>= 6 weeks beyond treatment with a nitrosourea or mitomycin-C, \>= 4 weeks beyond other chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and must have recovered to =\< grade 1 toxicity for any treatment-limiting toxicity of prior therapy; (exception: patients may have received palliative low-dose radiotherapy to the limbs 1-4 weeks before this therapy, provided pelvis, ribs, sternum, scapulae, vertebrae, or skull were not included in the radiotherapy field) * Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) performance status =\< 2 (Karnofsky \>= 60%) * Leukocytes \>= 4,000/uL * Absolute neutrophil count \>= 1,500/uL * Platelets \>= 100,000/uL * Total bilirubin =\< 1.0 mg/dL * Aspartate aminotransferase (AST)(serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase \[SGOT\])/alanine aminotransferase (ALT)(serum glutam…