Lifestyle
Grab a smoothie, draw some blood. Inside L.A.'s new $50,000-a-year wellness club
I sat in my car, in an El Segundo shopping mall parking lot, looking up at a new storefront touted as a one-stop shop for feeling physically fit, emotionally grounded and socially connected. My shoulder ached. It was my good luck that on the same day I was touring Love.Life — a new luxury health center conceived by John Mackey, co-founder of Whole Foods Market — I was also nursing a gym injury.
After weeks of navigating our infuriatingly slow medical system, it felt promising, if not surreal, to arrive at the doorstep of an establishment with nearly every treatment I could think of under one roof: diagnostic tests, rejuvenating therapies as well as fitness and nutrition plans to stave off future health problems.
I walked up to Love.Life’s entrance. Its gleaming picture windows and grass green exterior might as well have been the gates to the Emerald City, behind which mysterious healing modalities awaited. I clicked my heels together — I happened to be wearing red suede sneakers — and mumbled to myself: “There’s no place like a posh, membership-only holistic health club.” Then I headed inside, passing under block lettering that read: “Nourish Heal Thrive.”
“If this idea won’t work in L.A., it won’t work period,” says Love.Life co-founder John Mackey, who was also a co-founder of Whole Foods Market.
The lobby was blindingly bright, with porcelain floors and mod furniture in peppy colors. There was a spacious cafe on one side and a futuristic gym on the other, animated by various blinking screens. Around the corner were what looked like red-white-and-blue space pods. What they were for, I had no idea.
“Hi there,” said a receptionist at a clinically simple desk. Was I in the lobby of a boutique hotel? A doctor’s office? Or was this an astronaut training center? Or all of the above?
The idea for this lavish temple of wellness had been swirling in the back of Mackey’s brain for almost four decades. After co-founding Whole Foods in 1980, and growing the natural and organic foods store into an international network of more than 460 outlets, Mackey and company sold the publicly traded company to Amazon in 2017 for $13.7 billion.
For his next venture, the vegan, breathwork enthusiast and pickleball lover wanted to “change the way people think about health and wellness,” he told me a few weeks earlier when I met him at the not-yet-finished Love.Life space. “This is a continuation of my own higher purpose in life.”
Mackey left Whole Foods in 2022 but had already started working on plans for the club a year earlier. (It’s part of a multipronged parent company, Love.Life, that he co-founded in 2020.)
Over the last three years, he and his Love.Life co-founders — Whole Foods former Chief Executive Walter Robb and longtime executive Betsy Foster — transformed his dream into a reality: a swanky, holistic health center that’s part state-of-the-art gym, part high-end spa, part highly personalized doctor’s office and part exclusive social club. It touts specialists in both Eastern and Western modalities, as well as an on-site physical therapy clinic. Its “plants-forward” café serves superfood-filled dishes with names like Ocean Bowl and Green Tartine. Regular live events include meditations, soundbaths and breathwork classes. Love.Life even has three indoor pickleball courts.
If successful, Mackey envisions other centers in other cities before expanding internationally. But for now, the flagship Love.Life opens Saturday adjacent to — you guessed it — a palatial Whole Foods Market.
“If this idea won’t work in L.A., it won’t work period,” Mackey says. “People here are more into their health, they’re more into looking good, feeling good, they’re into longevity.”
Love.Life personal trainer Shelle Tarver plays on the pickleball court.
Love.Life team members demonstrate a yoga class.
Love.Life team members Marcie Icovino, center, and Maddy Isbell demonstrate pilates equipment.
Love.Life’s mission is to help its members live longer, healthier lives by deep-diving into their health history, executing an array of specialized tests and then suggesting fitness and lifestyle changes, paired with as many preventive health measures as humanly possible.
“We’re trying to help individuals become the healthiest, best versions of themselves — physically, emotionally and spiritually,” Mackey, dressed in jeans and a Love.Life-branded polo, says. “When do most people go to a doctor? When they get sick. Our idea is: We want you to start seeing a doctor 1723376780 so that you don’t ever have to see a doctor for the chronic diseases that kill.”
There’s a good reason most people in America don’t see a doctor until they feel ill or, say, experience shoulder pain. Our country’s healthcare is often prohibitively expensive and difficult to navigate. The “individuals” Mackey aims to help, Love.Life’s target market, are those with deep pockets who can afford to circumvent the system.
A Love.Life core membership starts at $750 a month for either a “High Performance,” “Heal” or “Longevity” membership, depending on the goal. They include five visits a year with a Love.Life primary care doctor, as well as health coaching, medical testing, fitness and recovery services and access to practitioners across 20-plus disciplines including traditional Chinese medicine, sports performance, yoga and nutrition. The membership cost tops out at the “Concierge” level, which costs $50,000 a year and includes unlimited doctors visits, 24/7 care and the most detailed level of medical testing the facility offers. There are also limited memberships, such as a medical-only or fitness and recovery-only membership for $500 a month and $300 a month, respectively.
Cold vapor billows out of a cryotherapy chamber as the author steps in.
A red light lamp offers the author collagen stimulation.
Upon enrolling, members can undergo a series of tests so facility specialists have a 360-degree view of their health. It’s a journey into the bodily unknown. They may draw blood for an advanced lab panel measuring more than 120 biomarkers, have their musculoskeletal layer assessed or undergo a DEXA body composition assessment and bone mineral density scan. Other specialty tests address the microbiome, hormone health, cardiac health and food sensitivities, among other things.
From there, Love.Life experts put together a personalized fitness, nutrition and lifestyle plan for the member, which they can follow at the facility’s gym or through various treatments. Red light therapy beds to support healing? Check. Breathwork class to manage stress? Check. Hyperbaric oxygen therapy pods to reduce inflammation? You better believe it.
Members book all appointments on an app, which also stores their health history and tracks fitness progress. They can also use it to share that information with any of Love.Life’s practitioners, reserve a pickleball court, book a massage or order lunch.
The Ocean Bowl at Love.Life is packed with superfoods, like blue spirulina, cacao and chia seeds. Though memberships to the wellness club start at $300 a month, members of the public are welcome to visit its cafe.
Some parts of Love.Life will be open to the public, such as the cafe, select healing therapies and the spa, for which anyone can buy a $100 day pass. But Mackey emphasizes that membership and community are key to the experience.
“If you have friends with good habits, you’re gonna pick that up,” he says.
That one-percenter healthy living also comes with its fair share of window dressing. In designing the 45,000-square-foot space, Mackey says Love.Life worked with an acoustical engineer to manage the sound flow. Passing from the airy, bustling lobby and cafe area into the spa, the halls narrow and the lights dim. A preserved moss wall absorbs ambient sound, but for a gurgling fountain and soothing music. Crystals, mirrors and chimes were ensconced in its walls per the advice of a Feng Shui expert. A warm Turkish Hammam Table allows visitors a place to stretch and lounge opposite a wall-sized fountain.
The preserved moss wall at Love.Life, which absorbs ambient sounds to keep the spa quiet.
The author undergoes a resting metabolic rate assessment, measuring energy expenditure and caloric burn at rest, attended by Danél Lombard, physical therapist, back center, and Davon Murray, exercise physiologist.
I paid a $100 visitor fee to enter and relaxed into a plush, leather Zero Gravity Chair, with heated seats and massage nodes, my head draped backward and my feet pointed high. This was a resting metabolic rate assessment, which measures your energy expenditure and how many calories your body burns at rest (the test was part of my reporting, and is not included with a spa pass). Attendants fitted me with a snug Vo2 max mask, which was synced to a nearby laptop. Then I zoned out for about 20 minutes, nearly falling asleep.
When they returned, I learned exactly how many calories my body needs to think, breathe and otherwise stay alive (not nearly as many as I’d hoped for). Had I been a member, I might have met with a Love.Life nutritionist next, to configure my caloric and macronutrient needs to support weight loss or exercise performance.
From there, Love.Life regional president, Michael Robertson led me into a private room where I slid my lower limbs into what looked like a space suit, while lying on a table. The FDA-cleared Ballancer Pro lymphatic compression therapy, he said, enhances lymphatic drainage to rid the body of toxins and reduces swelling and muscle soreness. Robertson zipped me up and tapped a button before the suit began to swell and squeeze my legs. It was oddly relaxing.
Love.Life personal trainer Shelle Tarver performs squats on a high tech OxeFit machine, which gives real-time feedback on power, velocity, load and balance.
Though I skipped the gym during my visit, personal trainer Shelle Tarver was there doing squats on something called an OxeFit machine. She faced a giant, vertical screen on which her digital avatar mirrored her moves and gave her real-time data about her power, velocity load and balance so she could make her workouts more effective.
Finally, it was time to chill out — literally. Robertson led me to what looked like a tall commercial refrigerator bathed in blue and purple light. The cryotherapy chamber was set at minus-120 degrees Fahrenheit. It was so cold that the instant I stepped inside — wearing a face mask, earmuffs and mittens for protection — ice crystals began to form on my nose and snowflakes fell from the ceiling. Cryotherapy is meant to reduce inflammation and increase circulation, Robertson said; but when I stepped out after one minute, I just felt very awake.
Preventive healthcare — spending money to stay well rather than on costly medical bills once sick — is a growing trend. Whether this proactive attitude is a response to America’s sluggish healthcare system or a quest for control at a chaotic time in history is anyone’s guess. But businesses have popped up to meet the desire.
West Hollywood’s Remedy Place offers high-end, holistic “social wellness services,” plus chiropractic and biometric testing; Healthspan, a digital medical clinic, aims to help patients fight aging and chronic disease. Even traditional gyms like Equinox are now offering a $40,000-a-year concierge membership that includes sleep coaching, personal training, massage therapy and nutrition advice.
Love.Life combines all these services into one club — and goes one step further. Its members can use their designated doctor at the club as their primary care provider. The company doesn’t accept insurance, but they do offer a super bill which members can submit for reimbursements if the tests and treatments qualify under their plan. Membership, Mackey clarified, is not meant to replace health insurance, however, which is still necessary for emergencies, among other things.
When Whole Foods opened in 1980, it merged the utilitarian supermarket experience with a hippie-minded desire to nourish oneself from the land. As the brand grew, it became synonymous with a certain crunchy aspirational lifestyle. Whole Foods became more than a place to pick up a carton of milk, it was a place to assert your values, and to feel good. (And spend, as many people joked, your “whole paycheck.”)
Can Mackey find the same success with Love.Life? To thread the same needle in the legendarily opaque realm of healthcare seems a much further stretch. But when your target market has bottomless pockets, a fantasy can become a reality.
Janette Rizk, Love.Life’s communications director, has her blood pressure checked in the medical clinic.
As exciting as that might be for some people, it could have negative affects on the larger population, says Paul Ginsburg, a professor of health policy at USC.
“They’re extending the scope of what medical care is for their wealthy clients,” he says of Love.Life. “If you’re wealthy, it’s a wonderful opportunity. But physician resources are stretched pretty thin today, and if the centers were to take off, engaging physicians in service to very wealthy people means drawing their time away from treating the general population — that’s the downside.”
Mackey hopes that Love.Life will follow in Whole Foods’ philanthropic path. (Whole Planet, a project of the grocery chain’s nonprofit, has invested $113 million in global communities since 2005.)
“Philanthropy comes from success,” Mackey says. “We will do things to help improve the health of poor people. But it’ll come because we’ll have the resources to do that.”
One of Love.Life’s many cold plunge tubs.
Love.Life’s spacious hemlock wood sauna in the spa.
Once my tour was over, I wistfully returned to the parking lot, a strawberry-Ashwagandha smoothie in hand. I’d enjoyed the experience more than I thought I would and longed for Love.Life’s services at my fingertips. After that whirlwind of peculiar chambers and treatments, I wondered if my ailing shoulder even felt a tad more limber.
But would I ever travel down this yellow brick road again? At Love.Life’s price points, likely never.
A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which the current board is calling the Trump Kennedy Center, in Washington, DC, on Dec. 26, 2025.
Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
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Brendan Smialowski / AFP via Getty Images
The Washington National Opera is leaving the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, its home since 1971.
Friday’s news, shared with NPR in a statement via email from the opera company, comes in response to new policies which the 70-year-old performing arts group said strain its financial model.
The Washington National Opera stressed the “amicability” of its decision to end its longtime residency at the Kennedy Center. But it said the center’s new business model, which requires productions to be fully-funded in advance, is incompatible with the usual mix of ticket sales, grants and donations that cannot all be secured ahead.
“Opera companies typically cover only 30-60% of costs through ticket sales, with the remainder from grants and donations that cannot be secured years ahead when productions must be planned,” the statement said.
The company added the model also does not accommodate its artistic mission, which aims to balance popular works such as West Side Story, slated for May 2026, with more obscure and experimental operas, such as the little-known Scott Joplin work, Treemonisha, scheduled for March. “Revenue from major productions traditionally subsidizes smaller, innovative works,” the statement said.
Artistic director Francesca Zambello, who has led the company for 14 seasons, shared her regrets in a statement with NPR, while also looking to the future.
“I am deeply saddened to leave the Kennedy Center,” Zambello said. “In the coming years, as we explore new venues and new ways of performing, Washington National Opera remains committed to its mission and artistic vision. Our repertory will continue to include diverse offerings, from monumental classics to more contemporary works, presented in bold visual productions with first-class musical values.”
In addition to a continued presence for now on the Kennedy Center website, the opera company launched its new independent website within a few hours of its announcement.
“After careful consideration, we have made the difficult decision to part ways with the Washington National Opera due to a financially challenging relationship,” the Kennedy Center wrote in an email to NPR on Friday. “We believe this represents the best path forward for both organizations and enables us to make responsible choices that support the financial stability and long-term future of the Trump Kennedy Center.”
On social media, Kennedy Center executive director Richard Grenell said it was the center’s decision to sever ties with the opera company — and not the other way around.
“The Trump Kennedy Center has made the decision to end the EXCLUSIVE partnership with the Washington Opera so that we can have the flexibility and funds to bring in operas from around the world and across the U.S.” Grenell said. “Having an EXCLUSIVE relationship has been extremely expensive and limiting in choice and variety.”
Grenell reposted his message on Saturday after he was alerted that his X.com account had been hacked and the original message had been removed.
President Donald Trump was named chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board in February 2025. His name was added to the Kennedy Center in December following a vote by the Trump-appointed members of its board. Since the power of the venue’s board to rename the center is currently in dispute, NPR continues to refer to the Kennedy Center using its legal name.
A string of exits
The Washington National Opera’s departure is the latest and perhaps most significant in a string of artist exits from the cultural institution since Trump took over the institution.
Backlash from ticket-buyers, slated performers, and certain board members—including Shonda Rhimes—was swift.
Artists are continuing to cancel performances. But one of the first to do so was a touring production of the musical Hamilton. In a statement on X in March 2025, producer Jeffrey Seller said he opposed the Trump administration’s ousting of many Democratic board members.
“The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents,” wrote Seller.
Actress and writer Issa Rae followed suit with a post on Instagram, cancelling her sold-out March performance.
A slew of additional artists and performance companies canceled after the board’s vote to rename the center “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.” Congress has not yet authorized the name change.
Grenell has responded to many cancellations on social media, condemning the artists. After Banjo player Béla Fleck canceled his performance because he said the center had become “political,” Grenell wrote on X, “You just made it political and caved to the woke mob who wants you to perform for only Lefties.
“This mob pressuring you will never be happy until you only play for Democrats. The Trump Kennedy Center believes all people are welcome—Democrats and Republicans and people uninterested in politics. We want performers who aren’t political—who simply love entertaining everyone regardless of who they voted for.”
Find a running list of these cancellations below.
Sonia De Los Santos
On Jan. 8, singer-songwriter Sonia De Los Santos announced on Instagram that she was canceling her upcoming February concert at the Kennedy Center. “As an artist,” wrote De Los Santos, “I treasure the freedom to create and share my music, and for many years I have used this privilege to uplift the stories of immigrants in this country.”
De Los Santos, who was nominated for a Latin Grammy for best children’s album in 2018, stated that “I do not feel that the current climate at this beloved venue represents a welcoming space for myself, my band, or our audience.”
Béla Fleck performs onstage during the 67th Annual Grammy Awards Premiere Ceremony at Peacock Theater on Feb. 2, 2025 in Los Angeles.
Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
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Leon Bennett/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Béla Fleck
Performing at the Kennedy Center “has become charged and political, at an institution where the focus should be on the music,” wrote American banjo player Béla Fleck about his scheduled appearance with the National Symphony Orchestra in an official statement posted to Instagram on Jan. 7. “I have withdrawn from my upcoming performance with the NSO at The Kennedy Center,” he wrote. “I look forward to playing with the NSO another time in the future when we can together share and celebrate art.”
The 18-time Grammy winner has performed at the Kennedy Center in the past.
Stephen Schwartz
The composer and lyricist for the beloved musicals Wicked, Godspell and Pippin was expected to host a gala fundraiser for the Washington National Opera in May 2026. On Jan. 2, Schwartz announced his withdrawal. According to NBC News, Schwartz reflected that the Kennedy Center was “founded to be a political home for free artistic expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies.” Today, he said, making an appearance “has now become an ideological statement.”
Richard Grenell quickly responded to Schwartz’s withdrawal, calling it a “bogus” report in a statement posted on X and saying reporters were plagiarizing a “fake @RollingStone story.” Schwartz was “never signed,” Grenell wrote.
Reports from NBC and other outlets, including Variety, have refuted this claim, publishing screenshots showing that Schwartz was promoted on the Kennedy Center’s website prior to his cancellation.
Stephen Schwartz attends the 2025 Songwriters Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony at Marriott Marquis Times Square on Jun. 12, 2025 in New York City.
Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame
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Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame
The Cookers
The seven-piece band of veteran jazz musicians announced shortly before Dec. 31 that they would not perform at the Kennedy Center for “A Jazz New Year’s Eve:”
“We know this news is disappointing,” reads the statement on their website. “We are not turning away from our audience, and do want to make sure that when we do return to the bandstand, the room is able to celebrate the full presence of the music and everyone in it. Our hope is that this moment will leave space for reflection, not resentment.”
The statement went on to say, “We remain committed to playing music that reaches across divisions rather than deepening them.”
Chuck Redd
The American jazz drummer and longtime host of the Kennedy Center’s annual Christmas Jazz Jam chose to cancel his 2025 appearance when he “saw the name change on the Kennedy Center website and then hours later on the building,” according to a statement sent to the Associated Press.
On Dec. 27, the Kennedy Center announced its plan to file a $1 million lawsuit against Redd. “Any artist canceling their show at the Trump Kennedy Center over political differences isn’t courageous or principled—they are selfish, intolerant, and have failed to meet the basic duty of a public artist: to perform for all people,” said Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi.
In a letter shared with NPR, Richard Grenell condemned Redd: “Regrettably, your action surrenders to the sad bullying tactics employed by certain elements on the left, who have sought to intimidate artists into boycotting performances at our national cultural center.”
Doug Varone and Dancers
“The renaming for me has kind of pushed me off a cliff,” said choreographer Doug Varone on Dec. 31, when he spoke with NPR’s Morning Edition. Varone, who was set to showcase members of his Doug Varone and Dancers company at the Kennedy Center in April 2026, pulled the performance.
John F. Kennedy, for whom the Kennedy Center was established as a living memorial, “believed in the arts as kind of the beating heart of our nation,” said Varone.
“I believe that the level of artistry has dropped drastically since the administration change, and the employees that were responsible for the quality of the work at the center have all been let go.”
After canceling, the company started a crowdfunding campaign to help offset its financial loss. It raised over $42,000, exceeding its $40,000 goal.
Magpie
In a statement posted to Facebook on Jan. 5, Greg Artzner of the American folk duo Magpie announced the decision to pull their Feb. 28 concert, set to play on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.
“There isn’t really anything defensible” about Trump, said the statement from Artzner and Magpie’s Terry Leonino. Although they had planned an evening of songs with messages of unity and hope, “We are personally and philosophically in agreement with the belief underlying the growing boycott,” they said. “The stand being taken by fellow artists we respect and admire has created a moral picket line. We stand with them in solidarity.”
An update on Jan. 9 said that Magpie would now be performing a longer version of that concert on Feb. 21 at Seekers Church in Washington, D.C., now called, “The Traveling John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restoration Roadshow.”
Kristy Lee
Folk singer Kristy Lee canceled her Jan. 14 Kennedy Center performance due to “recent efforts to impose political branding on the Center,” according to a statement posted on her website.
“Public arts spaces should be free from political influence,” Lee said in her statement. “I step back out of respect for artistic freedom and the Kennedy Center’s founding mission, not in opposition to its staff, artists, or audience.”
On Jan. 14, Lee plans to host a live-streamed concert instead, titled “Showing Up: From the Kennedy Center to the Couch.”
Low Cut Connie
Philadelphia rock and roll band Low Cut Connie pulled their concert, set for February 2025, “Upon learning that this institution that has run non-partisan for 54 years is now chaired by President Trump himself and his regime,” according to a statement posted on their Facebook page.
“Maybe my career will suffer from this decision,” wrote band frontman Adam Weiner, “but my soul will be the better for it.”
Rhiannon Giddens
In Feb. 2025, folk singer Rhiannon Giddens announced her departure from the Kennedy Center lineup in a social media statement. “I cannot in good conscience play at The Kennedy with the recent programming changes forced on the institution by this new board,” wrote Giddens.
Giddens transferred her May 11 concert, “Old-Time Revue,” to The Anthem concert hall, also in Washington, D.C.
Balún
The Puerto Rican band, based in Brooklyn in New York City, canceled their Kennedy Center performance, which had been set for Feb. 27, 2025.
According to a statement posted to Balún’s Instagram account, “recent events made it clear that the space no longer aligns with our values. Our safety, integrity, and commitment to justice come first.”
Issa Rae attends HBO’s final season premiere of “Insecure” at Kenneth Hahn Park on Oct. 21, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.
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Kevin Winter/Getty Images
Issa Rae
“Thank you so much for selling out the Kennedy Center for ‘An Evening With [Me],’” wrote Issa Rae, the acclaimed star and creator of HBO’s Insecure, on her Instagram stories page in Feb. 2025. “Unfortunately, due to what I believe to be an infringement on the values of an institution that has faithfully celebrated artists of all backgrounds through all mediums, I’ve decided to cancel my appearance at this venue.”
“Hamilton”
In March 2025, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller announced on X that the Tony-award winning musical phenomenon would no longer run as scheduled at the Kennedy Center. According to the statement, the decision was made both for political and for business reasons. Not only was there “a new spirit of partisanship,” the statement read in part, but “it would be “financially and personally devastating to the employees of Hamilton if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or re-negotiated our engagement. The actions of the new Chairman of the Board in recent weeks demonstrate that contracts and previous agreements simply cannot be trusted.”
The Kennedy Center was swift to respond to Hamilton‘s cancellation. On X in a now-deleted post, Richard Grenell accused Hamilton star and creator Lin Manuel-Miranda of being “intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically,” and stated that the decision was “a publicity stunt that will backfire.”
In the months since the show’s cancellation at the Center, Hamilton has continued to sell out theaters on Broadway and in venues nationwide who host its North American touring company.
U.S. Marine Band
The U.S. Marine Band announced in February 2025 that the Marine Band would not perform in the Equity Arc Wind Symphony event, a collaboration between Marine Band members and selected high school musicians.
The U.S. Marine Band, known also as “The President’s Own” was founded by an Act of Congress in 1798, making it the country’s oldest professional music organization.
Composer Kevin Charoensri, whose music had been scheduled to be performed by the band at the event, stated in a Facebook post that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) orders resulted in the cancellation of the Equity Arc concert:
“It has come to my attention that the program, one based on equity and diversity of voices, is no longer supported at the federal level under this administration,” Charoensri wrote. “It was for this reason that the program and performance were canceled.”
The U.S. Marine marching band performs in the 120th Tournament of Roses Parade January 1, 2009 in Pasadena, California.
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Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.
Happy new year! I’m Jaclyn Cosgrove, an outdoors reporter at the L.A. Times.
The deluge of rain and snow has paused, and the sun is out in Los Angeles. It’s a beautiful time for a winter hike in L.A. County.
I’d love for you to join me and Times wellness writer Deborah Vankin, alongside our friends at Zócalo Public Square, at 9 a.m. Jan. 31 as we hike through Placerita Canyon Natural Area, an east-west canyon east of Santa Clarita with lush oak woodland, chaparral and a seasonal creek.
We will start our trek with a gentle stroll to the Oak of the Golden Dream, where the first authenticated gold discovery by colonizers took place in California in 1842.
Then Vankin and I will lead 40 hikers along Canyon Trail, which will be 3.6 miles round trip. The hike includes an area where natural “white oil” bubbles up from the earth, which locals reportedly used to collect to fill their Ford Model T fuel tanks.
Parking is free and easy. We will meet in front of the Placerita Canyon Nature Center (19152 Placerita Canyon Road in Newhall).
We will have water bottles and snacks for attendees, but you’re also welcome to bring your own. You must be 18 or older and will be required to sign a waiver prior to attending. (Please consider arriving 15 minutes early to leave time for waiver signing.)
Grab a spot on Tixr.
Note: The hike will be rescheduled if rain is in the forecast.
A winter hike with the Los Angeles Times and Zócalo Public Square
Lee Byung-hun stars in No Other Choice.
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In an old Kids in the Hall comedy sketch called “Crazy Love,” two bros throatily proclaim their “love of all women” and declare their incredulity that anyone could possibly take issue with it:
Bro 1: It is in our very makeup; we cannot change who we are!
Bro 2: No! To change would mean … (beat) … to make an effort.
I thought about that particular exchange a lot, watching Park Chan-wook’s latest movie, a niftily nasty piece of work called No Other Choice. The film isn’t about the toxic lecherousness of boy-men, the way that KITH sketch is. But it is very much about men, and that last bit: the annoyed astonishment of learning that you’re expected to change something about yourself that you consider essential, and the extreme lengths you’ll go to avoid doing that hard work.
Many critics have noted No Other Choice‘s satirical, up-the-minute universality, given that it involves a faceless company screwing over a hardworking, loyal employee. As the film opens, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun) has been working at a paper factory for 25 years; he’s got the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect family — you see where this is going, right? (If you don’t, even after the end of the first scene, when Man-su calls his family over for a group hug while sighing, “I’ve got it all,” then I envy your blithe disinterest in how movies work. Never change, you beautiful blissful Pollyanna, you.)
He gets canned, and can’t seem to find another job in his beloved paper industry, despite going on a series of dehumanizing interviews. His resourceful wife Miri (Son Ye-jin) proves a hell of a lot more adaptable than he does, making practical changes to the family’s expenses to weather Man-su’s situation. But when foreclosure threatens, he resolves to eliminate the other candidates (Lee Sung-min, Cha Seung-won) for the job he wants at another paper factory — and, while he’s at it, maybe even the jerk (Park Hee-soon) to whom he’d be reporting.
So yes, No Other Choice is a scathing spoof of corporate culture. But the director’s true satirical eye is trained on the interpersonal — specifically the intractability of the male ego.
Again and again, the women in the film (both Son Ye-jin as Miri and the hilarious Yeom Hye-ran, who plays the wife of one of Man-su’s potential victims) entreat their husbands to think about doing something, anything else with their lives. But these men have come to equate their years of service with a pot-committed core identity as men and breadwinners; they cling to their old lives and seek only to claw their way back into them. Man-su, for example, unthinkingly channels the energy that he could devote to personal and professional growth into planning and executing a series of ludicrously sloppy murders.
It’s all satisfyingly pulpy stuff, loaded with showy, cinematic homages to old-school suspense cinematography and editing — cross-fades, reverse-angles and jump cuts that are deliberately and unapologetically Hitchcockian. That deliberateness turns out to be reassuring and crowd-pleasing; if you’re tired of tidy visual austerity, of films that look like TV, the lushness on display here will have you leaning back in your seat thinking, “This right here is cinema, goddammit.”
Narratively, the film is loaded with winking jokes and callbacks that reward repeat viewing. Count the number of times that various characters attempt to dodge personal responsibility by sprinkling the movie’s title into their dialogue. Wonder why one character invokes the peculiar image of a madwoman screaming in the woods and then, only a few scenes later, finds herself chasing someone through the woods, screaming. Marvel at Man-su’s family home, a beautifully ugly blend of traditional French-style architecture with lumpy Brutalist touches like exposed concrete balconies jutting out from every wall.
There’s a lot that’s charming about No Other Choice, which might seem an odd thing to note about such a blistering anti-capitalist screed. But the director is careful to remind us at all turns where the responsibility truly lies; say what you will about systemic economic pressure, the blood stays resolutely on Man-su’s hands (and face, and shirt, and pants, and shoes). The film repeatedly offers him the ability to opt out of the system, to abandon his resolve that he must return to the life he once knew, exactly as he knew it.
Man-su could do that, but he won’t, because to change would mean to make an effort — and ultimately men would rather embark upon a bloody murder spree than go to therapy.
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