“Jexi” is a “what if” movie, that sad brand of stale comedy that’s framed by a conceptually intriguing idea — like “Isn’t It Romantic,” which asked what if someone was stuck in a romantic comedy? With major studio comedies frequently tanking at the box office, this type of writing has become increasingly popular as producers search for a unique idea to get people into theater seats. This time, unfortunately, that didn’t work. In its opening weekend, “Jexi” grossed a meager 3.2 million dollars. For the benefit of those who didn’t see it (meaning most of the world) the film’s “what if” question is what if a cell phone fell in love? Phil, played by Adam Devine (“Isn’t It Romantic”), works an unsatisfying job at a Buzzfeed-style website making listicles about cats while pining for something more. When he buys a new phone, its unusually vivacious artificial intelligence software, Jexi, sets out to improve his life, and falls head over heels for him in the process. Of course, these feelings aren’t quite reciprocated, as Phil has fallen in love with Cate (Alexandra Shipp, “Love Simon) and starts to use his phone less. Devine and the cast, especially Wanda Sykes (“Bad Moms”), are funny enough to carry mediocre scenes that have been done before in countless other comedies. The science fiction elements, centered around a sentient, emotional AI, are interesting at a base level, asking common but still pressing questions about artificial life and the future of human connection. Jexi herself is also hilarious, delivering expletive-filled rants with the dryness of a taciturn artificial personality like Siri. The movie is a strange combination of science fiction with a social point a la “Black Mirror” and a Lifetime network romantic comedy. The two genres in “Jexi” mix like oil and water. The science fiction is kept a wall away from the love story, shoved into a subplot. The film employs elements from two distinct genres with widely different rules and conventions, without considering how they would appear in juxtaposition. Since a balance is never achieved, they manage to diminish the effects of each other. Imagine going from a meditation on life with AI to a showy dance montage — it’s jarring. The romance comes off as frivolous and unrealistic, while the sci-fi appears impersonal, just a gimmick in service of the plot. On top of the blithe romance and its science fiction sojurns, “Jexi” clumsily tries to say something about society. It’s a basic message: Technology dependence bad, personal connection good. The opening scene is a montage of Phil diving into a cell phone to escape his parents’ troubled marriage. Then there’s Adam painstakingly working to create the “perfect” Facebook picture, slathering it in filters and emojis. Finally, and most ham-fistedly — a phone literally tries to stop Phil from having a human relationship. This idea would work if “Jexi” had any real humanity, yet everything about it invokes the superficiality of the internet age. The cinematography chokes in colors straight out of Snapchat’s most garish filters, and the music used wouldn’t be out of place in an Apple commercial. The characters are like Instagram personalities, too. They fit their assigned roles perfectly, without any blemishes, and there is never any real depth. Kid Cudi’s awkward cameo furthers the unreality. “Jexi” dispenses surface pleasures perfectly, conjuring brief laughs or mild interest, but in the end, nothing sticks. Its many disparate parts are too underdeveloped and contradictory to work. Satires about similar topics, like the episode “Nosedive” from “Black Mirror,” work because the comedy and science fiction are intertwined, combining to say something meaningful about the human experience. In “Jexi,” they’re too chopped up, which keeps it from saying anything at all. “Jexi” will be buried in the streaming sludge among other forgotten movies, joining the ever- growing pile of colorful, smiling thumbnails that don’t do much but look pretty. This seems like the most appropriate fate. The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Arts Monday, October 21, 2019 — 5A The band is Never Ending Game. The album is Just Another Day. The following are real reactions to the music found on the internet: “Music created by sentient neck tattoos,” “You must listen and punch at least three of your friends in the face,” “Definitely never wearing a shirt at a show again after listening to this one time” and the especially poignant, “Never Ending Game FUCKS.” If such pleasantries don’t make you want to listen to this album, I’d like to offer my sincere apologies, but your tastes are out of whack. Never Ending Game, otherwise known as NEG, is composed of the former members of the bands Freedom, True Love, Detain and Breaking Wheel, a few of Detroit’s finest hardcore bands. In plain terms, the band has some serious pedigree. NEG’s brand of hardcore is for the purists: Anyone who wants it, as long as they can deal with the band’s sawed-off-shotgun energy. They do what they do, and someone doesn’t like it — well, too bad, they’re going to keep doing it. NEG crafts brooding, methodical, groovy, riffy, bass-heavy hardcore with lyrics filled with venom and cynicism, and on Just Another Day, they push the limits of that sound. Lead single “God Forgives…” aptly prepares listeners for the band’s current mission. Looping guitar chugs and drum snaps provide a just backdrop to lyrics like, “Don’t crawl back / What we possess is what you lack.” NEG posits themselves as a band that has transcended the scene. They’re setting the pace for all other hardcore bands. In one of the best calls of the year, a robotic sample drops an ominous “God forgives…” and vocalist Mikey barks a fear- inducing “N-E-G don’t” in response. It could not be more perfect. The band makes it clear that no one can mimic their sound, and if they try, they will be sorry. The first four tracks are an unforgiving onslaught of NEG’s best material, but then something strange happens. The brutality lets up, but just for a moment. A minute and 41 seconds, to be exact. On “N.E.G. Jams,” the band breaks down into a groovy garage metal set, free of vocals. It’s not much, but it sure is a hell of a lot of fun — the perfect way to break up the violence. Much of the same happens for the rest of the album, but that’s not a bad thing. Rather, it’s a testament to NEG’s consistency and their mastery of craft. Late album highlights include “Bleeding,” a storm-siren track littered with quotable lines and gang vocals, and “Stolen Life,” a winding, haunting (almost medieval) track with lyrics like, “I learned at an early age / Life can’t be given back, only taken away … Only the faces change, it all stays the same.” The song in which Never Ending Game is at their best, however, is album closer “1 of Those Nights.” “1 of Those Nights” finds NEG at their best, their most dynamic and their most earnest. On this track, the band metamorphosizes into a metal act á la Power Trip or Gatecreeper while still maintaining their hardcore roots. NEG isn’t trying to pummel listeners with this one. Instead, they’re trying to teach listeners a lesson in getting through hard times. Downtrodden early lines like “Every night, I close my eyes / I’ll give this life one more try / The tears I’ve cried have left me blind” are contrasted by later lines like “You brought me to the light / With you, I’ll make it through the night / Wish I had the words to thank you for opening my eyes.” It’s powerful, and especially given the hardcore delivery of the message, the record may well be the band’s best work. Never Ending Game is obviously a good hardcore band, but their quirks are what make them great. They’re much more nuanced than many of their contemporaries, and Just Another Day does an excellent job proving that. They wear their influences on their sleeves, but it’s not just their influences within the genre. The soul samples and the movie samples demonstrate NEG’s ability to pull inspiration from other media and warp it to fit their needs in fresh, exciting ways. If Never Ending Game can keep up with the pace they set on Just Another Day, we may be talking about them in the God forgives, but not NEG ANDREW WARRICK Daily Arts Writer ALBUM REVIEW ‘Jexi’: Artifice meets itself JIM WILSON Daily Arts Writer FILM REVIEW In many ways, Netflix’s “Living with Yourself” is your standard sitcom — Miles Eliot (Paul Rudd, “Avengers: Endgame”) is in his late thirties, his marriage and career tread water as he faces the impending reality of middle age. The only difference is that while others attempt to learn how to play an instrument or buy a new car, Miles attempts to escape his familiar lifestyle by cloning himself. In all fairness, this was not his goal. Miles learns from his co-worker Dan (Desmin Borges, “You’re the Worst”) about an extremely exclusive spa that gives their clients a DNA detox in order to let them live life to their fullest potential. Desperate enough to pay the $50,000 fee, Miles lies down in the treatment chair and wakes up as a new man — one with a rejuvenated sense of life. He sticks his out of the car window like a dog, outshines Dan at the office and cooks meals for his wife Kate (Aisling Bea, “This Way Up”). The only problem is that original Miles wakes up in a body bag in a forest and isn’t too fond of this new Miles, who is literally a better version of himself, taking over his life. Based on the first few episodes, the show mostly alternates between the perspectives of the original Miles and his clone. At its worst, it can get repetitive and confusing. At its best, this show demonstrates Rudd’s ability as an actor to simultaneously play a worn-out pinhead and a charismatic maniac. Every episode thus far has ended in a cliffhanger. But the source of most of the drama comes from its (sort of confusing) narrative structure as the episodes begin by rewinding the cliffhanger sequence and playing it from the other Miles perspective. In some ways, Timothy Greenberg’s “Living with Yourself” is like Michael Schur’s “The Good Place,” both utilizing fantastical premises to explore the potential for self-improvement. Although “Living with Yourself” is less magical, it too uses absurdist humor to break up awkward situations. Contrasted with “The Good Place”, where there is an explanation for everything, Greenberg doesn’t seem too concerned in the science or rules surrounding the premise. This is problematic as there is minimal explanation for how Top Happy Spa operates — they create a clone with genetic improvement and transfer memories of the original client who is normally killed in the process. Additionally, the rules feel inconsistent: New Miles knows everything that original Miles has learned but feels none of the frustration from Kate’s failed pregnancy. It’s extremely unclear as to why refreshing one’s DNA would rid Miles of past disappointments that led him to make the decision to become cloned to begin with. “Living with Yourself” feels simultaneously original, yet tired. It combines standard sitcom tropes coupled with technological anxiety, grounded with the talented Paul Rudd. If you are a fan of Rudd, that is enough reason to watch. Aside from that, the eight-episode season makes it a minimal commitment. Paul and ... even more Paul JUSTIN POLLACK Daily Arts Writer My introduction into the world of highlife music came incidentally through my love of the distinctive, jangly sound of Johnny Marr’s Rickenbacker 330. You can often see the associations online, even though Marr himself says he never himself was really aware of the genre when he started experimenting with his signature tone. Nonetheless, the obvious comparisons still persist, providing an introduction to the diverse, political genre. It’s difficult to pin down the precise origins through the multitudes of sub-genres, but most sources seem to agree that highlife began in Ghana in the early 1900s as a mix of local Ghanaian musical traditions with European instrumentation and a distinct jazz influence, which itself at the time was reaching its peak popularity. The term itself came from the idea at the time that, going to certain clubs and other establishments to listen to bands playing this type of music was indeed “living the highlife.” Listening to renditions of classics of the early highlife era such as Jacob Sam’s “Yaa Amponsah,” one can hear the influences on Anglophone works that would appear several decades later, from Paul Simon to The Talking Heads. Highlife itself takes most of its rhythms and structures from the folk music of the Akan people, the predominant ethnic group in the Gold Coast area of West Africa. Musicians who were familiar with traditional instruments such as the seperewa, a harp-lute transitioned easily to guitars, a representation of this type of synthesis of new instrumentation and traditional motifs. During the postwar period, and especially during the time when Ghana gained its independence from England, highlife became not only the country’s most popular form of music, but also a symbol of national unity and a mode of celebration, even though the genre in its early stages heavily catered towards the wealthy and colonial elite in the urban centers of the country. Even Louis Armstrong came to Ghana to perform alongside the “King of Highlife” E.T. Mensah and his band The Tempos. During the 1940s and ’50s, the genre spread from its origins in the coast of Ghana into neighboring countries, becoming especially popular in Nigeria. Fela Kuti, arguably the most famous Nigerian musician ever, was heavily influenced by highlife when creating the style of music he dubbed “Afrobeat.” In both countries, the genre consumed influences from funk and reggae as well, yet again blending new elements. Some of the genre’s best tracks came out of this period of popularity in Nigeria in the 1960s and ’70s, a time when the genre declined in popularity (albeit with a short revival) in Ghana, including Celestine Ukwu’s sunny “Ejina Uwa Nya Isi.” Even until the 1980s, classics such as “Osondi Owendi” were being released by artists such as Stephen Osita Osadebe, who aimed to further “Africanize” the genre rather than take most of its influences from external forms such as jazz. Highlife is a difficult genre to precisely define since it resists all such attempts. Yet its influence has been felt far and wide, and has lent itself to both political and nonpolitical movements. The unwavering fluidity of unity in highlife music SAYAN GHOSH Daily World Music Columnist WORLD MUSIC COLUMN Living with Yourself Series Premiere Netflix Just Another Day Never Ending Game Triple B Records NETFLIX TV REVIEW Jexi Goodrich Quality 16, Ann Arbor 20+ IMAX Lionsgate Listening to renditions of classics of the early highlife era such as Jacob Sam’s “Yaa Amponsah,” one can hear the influences on Anglophone works that would appear several decades later, from Paul Simon to The Talking Heads.