The Frame

Author, religion scholar and TV consultant Reza Aslan adds talk show host to his credits with "Rough Draft"; Oscar nominee Lon Burden breaks down the sound design for a crucial scene in "The Revenant"; the toughest Oscars trivia contest happens at a pub in Santa Monica.

The Black Version is a group of improv performers who put an Afro-centric spin on mainstream movies; Leonardo DiCaprio sees environmental parallels between the 1820s when "The Revenant" is set and modern-day America; eligibility rules for the Oscars raise questions for the original score nominees.

Will this year’s Academy Awards be the tipping point for racial representation in Hollywood? Marc Bernardin of The Hollywood Reporter weighs in; The Song Exploder podcast takes apart a song with the band Clipping; "Inside Out" writer Meg LeFauve gets a Pixar education and now takes on Ms. Marvel.

USC's Institute for Diversity and Empowerment at Annenberg tracked the representation of women, people of color, and the LGBT community in film and television and found Hollywood is still "a straight, white boys club." Then co-star and co-creator of the HBO show 'Togetherness', Steve Zissis, mines his life-- failures and all-- for the show. And comedian Kamau Bell is excited to see Chris Rock turn #OscarsSoWhite into comic gold at the Academy Awards.

Comedian Paul Rust went from Iowa to working with his childhood heroes Judd Apatow and Paul Rubens, and now he's landed the Netflix series "Love," which comes out today. The Coen Brothers bring water ballet back to the big screen in "Hail, Caesar!" with the L.A. aquatic dance troupe Aqualillies. Also, we deconstruct the Oscar race for Best Picture with John Horn and Kyle Buchanan from The Awards Show Show.

Writer-director Robert Eggers' impressive feature debut is about witches in colonial New England; after camera assistant Sarah Jones was killed on a film set, her parents became advocates for production safety; the play 'Placas' tells the story of a man who escapes one of the world's most brutal gangs.

David Javerbaum created @TheTweetOfGod, which led to the hit Broadway play, "An Act of God," currently starring Sean Hayes; faced with low ratings, ABC fires network chief Paul Lee; singer-songwriter M. Ward revisits his early years in the Conejo Valley on his new album.

The producer of the Record of the Year Grammy talks about what went into making the dance hit, "Uptown Funk"; France's Academy Awards entry for Foreign Language Film was actually shot in Turkey by a Turkish-born filmmaker; Edward Gero played Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in a show at Arena Stage.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Alejandro G. Iñárritu of "The Revenant" are among the filmmakers and actors on The Frame's annual Academy Awards preview. You'll also hear from Sylvester Stallone, Brie Larson, Bryan Cranston and many others.

Sylvester Stallone turned down the part of an ailing Rocky Balboa in "Creed" twice before agreeing to do it-- with the help of an acting coach. Now he's nominated for an Oscar. Grammy nominated musician Lianne La Havas finds inspiration in Jamaica. How only Kanye West could pack Madison Square Garden while playing an album off his laptop.

Julius Onah directed the movie about a former child soldier in Africa who seems to fully adapt to his new life in America; how and why YouTube became the world's most popular music streaming site; a new documentary tells the story of the Bay Area's thrash metal scene.

Writers and comedians Diallo Riddle and Bashir Salahuddin talk about their new IFC series that's a fake documentary about a fake "Soul Train"-like music show; N.Y. Times co-theater critic Jesse Green on the legacy of Broadway legend Harold Prince, who died at the age of 91.

Anna Konkle and Maya Erskine get a writing nomination for their comedy series set in middle school; Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg News on musicians seeking representation in Washington; Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera talk about their film, "The Infiltrators," which tells the true story of two undocumented immigrants who go inside America’s for-profit, immigrant detention system.

Inara George and Greg Kurstin previously released an album of Hall & Oates covers, and now they've turned to songs made famous by Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth; is there a rift in the Writers Guild leadership?; do faith-based movies need film critics?

How Quentin Tarantino and his team recreated 1969 Hollywood. Director Gigi Saul Guererro tells an immigration story as a horror film and the Alamo Drafthouse (finally) opens in DTLA. All that plus documentaries about Mike Wallace and Cambridge Analytica. Plus, we remember New Orleans music legends.

Veteran cinematographer Robert Richardson talks about shooting "Once Upon a Time In Hollywood"; the documentary "For Sama" is an unflinching look at the war in Syria; Michael McDonald on being the ultimate backup singer.

The Texas-based theater chain has been working on a complex here for six years and the owners are hoping audiences will connect with the in-seat food service and bar; film festival season is upon us; re-creating the streets of L.A. circa 1969 for “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.”

The documentary by Ari Belkin examines the life and career of the famed journalist; Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter previews Television Critics Association press tour; the indie video game market.

Writer and director Pippa Bianco talks about her first feature film, which was adapted from her 2015 short; why are artists pulling their work from the Whitney Biennial?; the host of the "Mueller, She Wrote" podcast preps for the big day.

Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim co-directed the documentary about the Cambridge Analytica/Facebook controversy; all the news from Comic-Con; Rodrigo y Gabriel have guitars, will travel.

Marc Maron shines in a new improvised film from Lynn Shelton. Linda Ronstadt gets celebrated for a life in music. David Crosby makes a mea culpa documentary with Cameron Crowe and "Apollo 11" reveals a hidden side to the moon landing.

We mark the 50th anniversary of the moon landing by revisiting our interviews with "First Man" director Damien Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer, and with the film's sound editors, Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan, who were nominated for an Academy Award; Todd Douglas Miller, director of the groundbreaking documentary, "Apollo 11."