American
Football’s
first

release in 17 years begins softly,
with
a
quietly

crescendoing
set
of
chimes

that
reverberate

through the ears.
The
delicacy
of

the noise evokes
thoughts
of

tinkling
wind

chimes dancing in
the wind, reminiscent of a sun
soaked warm welcome back
home after a long and tiring
adventure.

The group was originally

active from 1997 to 2000,
releasing their first self-titled
LP in 1999 and a few other
works before disbanding. In the
years since, the members have

been
working

on
separate

ventures.

LP2 has a

gentle
sound,

fueled by Mike
Kinsella’s
burnished
yet
powerful

voice,
silky

with honeyed nostalgia. Slow
buildups
and
lulls
in
the

sound blended with slightly
unexpected vocal harmonies,

steady and persistent bass and
Steve
Lamos’s
multifaceted

drumming are magnetizingly
immersive, striking a perfect
balance and ensuring that the
vocals are never drowned out
by the instrumentals.

American Football has a

distinct imprint on the emo
scene in part for their obscure
time signatures, which lend the
music an asymmetrical quality
that not only complicates the
instrumental
line
but
also

creates a complex, many-sided
listening experience. In some
of the songs, the guitars play
on a completely different time
signature from the drums. The
irregular beats are particularly

audible in “Give Me the
Gun,” especially in the parts
of the piece where Kinsella’s
voice
fades
away
and

drumming takes the stage.

Not every track is slow-

paced,
however.
“Desire

Gets In The Way,” track eight
on the LP, has a noticeably
more
upbeat
sound
in

comparison to the rest of
the
collection.
Lighter,

dancing guitar notes and
quicker drumming are at
the forefront of the song as
Kinsella proclaims “ Desire
gets in the way / you can’t
hide such an ugly trait.”
The bridge of the song is
surprisingly mellow as most
of the instrumentals vanish
and
Kinsella
tenderly

sings “For you, I’ll remain
/ chained to the bed we
made.”

It’s rare for a group to

come back full force after
a breakup, and rarer still
to do so after a 17 year long
hiatus. With LP2’s warm,
undulating sound, American
Football proves that they
are more than ready for the
challenge.

O

n
TV,
conflict
and

confrontation
are

central.
Any
major

conflict being raised is treated like
a promise that must be delivered
on, and if it’s never addressed, it’s
bad TV. Almost any
time the possibility
of a new romantic
pairing is floated, for
example, those two
people will end up
together, even if it’s
just one hook-up that
never becomes more.

Most TV creates

the false perception
that
interpersonal

conflict
is
largely

built on a series of dramatic
arguments. If people keep their
petty resentments inside and let
them fester without confronting
each other, eventually it’ll blow
up into an even more explosive
confrontation. In the real world, of
course, most interpersonal conflicts
are more subtle and low-scale.

In fact, in the age we live in,

a lot of indicators of conflict
between people come from tiny
social media interactions. That’s
something most TV writers avoid
dramatizing, probably out of fear
of the drama feeling too trivial
and petty. But social media plays
such a huge role in our lives now
that it feels weird to ignore it
entirely, especially because little
social media occurrences can
have surprisingly big emotional
effects. When I haven’t talked to
somebody in a long time, whether
it’s because of a fight we got into
or some subtle conflict, we often
won’t Snapchat each other, won’t
“like” each other’s Facebook posts,
won’t acknowledge each other’s
tweets. So if somebody randomly
“likes” one of my posts for the first
time months after a fight, it feels

like a huge step forward, like this is
them subtly reaching out to me to
revive our lost friendship, or even
just to let me know they’re not
angry at me anymore.

But on TV, if a character

legitimately
felt

sad that someone
was liking someone
else’s
posts
and

not their own, that
character
would

come
across
as

the stereotype of a
millennial teenage
girl obsessed with
the
most
trivial

social
media

happenings. On TV,

you have to create “real” drama
to deal with. “That girl isn’t liking
my Instagram pictures” is not
enthralling drama. But it happens
a lot in this modern world, so
shouldn’t we depict it onscreen?

The best show at illustrating how

important social media interactions
can feel is “Man Seeking Woman,”
an FXX sitcom that heightens the
romantic travails of the average
awkward 20-something guy to
surreal
degrees.
One
episode

devotes a whole sequence to figuring
out how Josh (Jay Baruchel, “This
is the End”) should respond to a
text; various consultants surround
Josh at a conference table as if
the fate of the world depends on
what he sends. Michael Hogan
(“Battlestar Galactica”) screams
“Text ‘jk!’ ” repeatedly, and the
stakes are extreme. But “Man
Seeking Woman” works so well
because it sets out to be fantastical,
to be deliberately surreal to express
how very real occurrences feel.
It succeeds because it presents
these seemingly trivial incidents
in astronomical terms. Most shows
can’t do that. Not every show can
employ fantastical interludes like

“Jane the Virgin” or “Man Seeking
Woman” can, so these small
internal conflicts mostly get left
out.

Sometimes, I wish that life

was more like TV. I wish every
mere romantic possibility came
to fruition, every conflict was
exciting and every obstacle I faced
would, in the end, result in me
being a stronger, more resilient
person.

I wish that, every time I was

angry at someone for a justified
reason, I would have the bravery to
come out and confront them about
what they did. I wish that, if I felt
myself drifting from someone, I
would immediately make a move to
rectify it and not give a shit whether
I came across as “powerless,”
whether I came across as the
person who gave more of a shit. I
wish that, if someone was avoiding
me or pushing me away, they would
just tell me so I understood their
motives. I wish that life was like
TV, because on TV, motivations are
usually clear, because everyone is
always explaining themselves all
the time. Most TV conflict could
be solved by open and honest
communication, and most is solved
that way.

But in reality, the truth is

that most of life isn’t built on
confrontation.
There’s
long,

drawn-out, lingering resentment
that either comes out late or often
not at all. There’s stuff that goes
unaddressed
because
people

are so utterly afraid of what
consequences even bringing it up
would have. A lot of times, there’s
never really any closure. People
have to move on without any neat
tying of bows. Sometimes, the
perfect cathartic confrontation is
no more than a myth, a convenient
storytelling device reserved for
TV.

Contrary to what we see on the screen, life isn’t so dramatic

BEN

ROSENSTOCK

TV’s unrealistic focus on confrontation

The original “Jack Reacher”

wasn’t exactly great. The dia-
logue was hammy and seemed
like it would be more at home
in a 1950s noir flick. The char-
acters
straddled

the line between
boring and just
plain
unlikable,

and
the
story

was
extremely

run-of-the-mill.
Director
Chris-

topher
McQuar-

rie, who would go
on to work with
star Tom Cruise
again
on
last

year’s excellent “Mission: Impos-
sible - Rogue Nation,” managed to
breathe some life into the script,
however, so it wasn’t a complete
loss. But its sequel, “Jack Reacher:
Never Go Back” isn’t lucky enough
to have someone like McQuarrie
to salvage the script. In the hands
of director Edward Zwick (“The
Last Samurai”), “Never Go Back”
becomes a film that is less corny
than the original but also expo-
nentially more generic.

The opening act of “Never Go

Back” is actually relatively prom-
ising. Cruise and Cobie Smulders
(“The Avengers”) have believ-
able chemistry, and the evolution
of their relationship is shown
through a montage of their meet-
ings by phone so that when she is
arrested, it’s all the more under-
standable that Reacher would
single-mindedly
believe
her

innocence. Cruise and Smulders

are the film’s greatest assets, as
it turns out, because just about
everything after those initial
scenes is boring and forgettable,
and it begins with the introduc-
tion of Reacher’s new teen side-
kick.

It’s not that young sidekicks are

inherently bad. They aren’t, and

they can be used to
add further dimen-
sions to their men-
tors. Unfortunately,
these characters are
by and large vehi-
cles driven by angst
and poor decision
making, whose sole
purpose is to act as
damsels in distress.
Such is the case with
Samantha Dayton,

played by Danika Yarosh (“Heroes
Reborn”), who almost gets herself
and everyone around her killed on
at least three occasions and adds
nothing to the overall plot besides
an overwrought subplot in which
Reacher, action hero extraordi-
naire, learns the value of family.

As nearly worthless as the

Samantha character is, though,
the villains of “Never Go Back”
somehow manage to be worse.
“Forgettable” barely sums up
these men who hardly have
names, let alone motivations and
personalities. Robert Knepper
(“Prison Break”) plays General
Harkness, the main antagonist,
who is on screen for all of two
minutes, never giving Knepper
the chance to make the unnerv-
ing impression that is his well-
earned bread and butter. Reacher
and company are also pursued by
a mercenary known only as the

Hunter, who is about as mundane
as his title implies and not worth
the time it would take to criticize.

Still, “Never Go Back” could

have been saved had Zwick craft-
ed an interesting action set piece
or two. Again, the original “Jack
Reacher” was nothing special, but
the car chase between Reacher
and the authorities was well-shot
and legitimately exciting, hint-
ing at the talent which McQuar-
rie possessed. Zwick opts to go a
different direction, in that all but
two of the film’s spectacularly
few “action” scenes are made up
entirely of rapidly edited shots of
pretty people running while being
accompanied by generic chase
music.

And “generic” seems to be the

word that best sums up “Never
Go Back.” Its generic plot is only
unpredictable because the view-
er is so bored that they won’t
bother to try to figure out where
it’s going. Its generic characters
come and go at the will of the
screenwriter, creating many a
moment of “Oh, right, that char-
acter exists.” Its generic action
only serves to highlight what a
tedious slog the whole thing is,
instead of injecting any amount
of excitement into the affair. Its
generic villains barely feature at
all and could be exchanged for the
villains of almost any other action
movie with no difference made to
the plot. “Never Go Back” is not
awful, but only because it’s too
generic and mediocre in every-
thing but its lead performances to
be truly awful. Instead, it settles
for feeling more like a feature
length “NCIS” episode than any-
thing else.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

For the Daily

‘Never Go Back’ has promise, but fails

Sequel to 2012 thriller significantly more generic than the original

PARAMOUNT

Do you have this Pokemon?

C-

“Jack Reacher:
Never Go Back”

Ann Arbor 20 &

Quality 16

Paramount

‘LP2’ a strong comeback

SAMANTHA LU

For the Daily

American Football scores touchdown with new release

ALBUM REVIEW
TV COLUMN

FILM REVIEW

A-

American Football

American Football

Polyvinyl Records

6A — Monday, October 24, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com