‘We All Have an Irvine’

California’s Future Looks Grim, but a Genre-Bending Movie and a Master-Planned Community Offer Unexpected Inspiration

In the best scene of any California pandemic-era entertainment to date, a middle-aged man named Roy (played by J.K. Simmons) sits in his Irvine backyard and advises Nyles (Andy Samberg) on coping with an unthinkable apocalyptic reality.

“I mean, it doesn’t get any better than that,” Roy says, surveying his suburban idyll in Orange County’s great master-planned community. “You’ve gotta find your Irvine.”

Nyles, who is in existential despair, is dubious. “I don’t have an Irvine.”

“We all have an Irvine,” Roy says.

The apocalypse, for Roy and Nyles—characters in the genre-bending sci-fi comedy …

Irvine, I Love You

My Hometown May Be Sterile and Boring, But It Made Me Hungry to Experience the Wider World

I am Irvine.

I grew up in Westpark, the neighborhood between Culver and Warner avenues a few miles north of where the 5 and 405 freeways meet. My first-grade classroom and …