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  • Los Angeles Times

    How a hometown director made 'White Men Can't Jump' a 'love letter' to 'the real LA'

    by Kailyn Brown, Los Angeles Times May 17, 2023 7 minutes
    Director and executive producer Charles "Calmatic" Kidd II arrives for the premiere of "White Men Can't Jump" at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California, on May 11, 2023.

    LOS ANGELES — Grammy-winning director Charles "Calmatic" Kidd II didn't set out to become a filmmaker. Nor did the South L.A. native imagine that he'd make his Hollywood debut with two movies in the same year.

    But when producers and film executives were searching for a director to reimagine two beloved L.A. films — Reginald Hudlin's "House Party" and Ron Shelton's "White Men Can't Jump," both released in the early 1990s — no one filled the bill quite like Calmatic.

    "That's kind of why I did it, because I just feel like my attention to detail from sports, L.A. sports specifically, and the way the culture moves and breathes and what it looks like, I'm just a student of that," says Calmatic, who got his start in the entertainment industry in 2010 and directed music videos and documentaries for artists like Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak and the late Nipsey Hussle before they were household names. He's since directed a Super Bowl ad featuring Lakers star LeBron James and won a Grammy for Lil Nas X's "Old Town Road" music video.

    "It's one thing as a creator to understand the culture and be a student of it, but it's another

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