“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.

