The Frame

Young Jean Lee's play, "Straight White Men," is an examination of privilege that provokes and challenges audiences; movie theater owners are getting creative about selling "Star Wars" merchandise and concessions; Lorely Rodriguez, aka Empress Of, is getting raves for her debut album.

Spike Lee's latest provocation likens the level of gun violence in Chicago to a war zone; Rooney Mara's performance in "Carol" adds to her already impressive list of credits; the beloved "Charlie Brown" holiday special, now in its 50th year, wasn't originally embraced by network executives.

Eddie Redmayne, last year’s best actor Oscar winner for “The Theory of Everything,” talks about portraying a trans-woman in “The Danish Girl”; Latin Grammy-winner Natalia Lafourcade deconstructs her song, “Hasta La Raíz”; This year's Independent Spirit Award winners will likely differ a lot from the Oscars.

As producer of the "Hunger Games" movies and a former studio executive, Nina Jacobson has a platform to demand gender equality in Hollywood; Pixar president Ed Catmull has helped build the studio into the empire it is today.

Ryan Coogler grew up watching the "Rocky" movies, and now he's director and co-writer of the spin-off, "Creed"; How "Toy Story" saved a struggling special effects firm called Pixar; "The Hunting Ground" inspires the question: can journalism and advocacy co-exist in documentaries?

Todd Haynes has directed several films with women as protagonists and his latest is “Carol,” which stars Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara; MADtv debuted 20 years ago and managed to stay on the air for 14 seasons; a club owner considers L.A. nightlife after the Paris attacks.

Series creator Kurt Sutter is disappointed but not bitter about the cancellation of "The Bastard Executioner"; it's been 20 years since MADtv set out to be the west coast version of "Saturday Night Live"; "The Hunting Ground" examines sexual assaults on college campuses.

Writer-producer John McNamara and director Jay Roach talk about the struggle to make "Trumbo," about the 1940s Hollywood blacklist victim; Nancy Tartaglione, international editor for Deadline.com, on the importance of cinema in France; Rashard Bradshaw, aka Cakes da Killa, is a loud and proud gay rapper.

The Marvel comics character Jessica Jones has a dark backstory, which is what inspired producer Melissa Rosenberg to create a TV series about her; in the documentary "Song of Lahore," a group of Pakistani musicians use a jazz standard and You Tube to find a global audience; Pandora will enter the on-demand music streaming business.

After taping an episode in Cuba earlier this year, Conan O'Brien travels to Armenia with his assistant, who gets to visit her family's homeland; the terrorist attacks in Paris have caused two networks to postpone sensitive episodes, and several bands have canceled European dates.

The director's new film continues his focus on characters struggling to come to terms with themselves; why are 1930s-era murals in San Francisco causing a fuss today?; revisiting our chat with Emmy-nominee Samantha Bee.

His father is Bobby McFerrin and he has a brother and sister who also are singers. Taylor has been making music for some time now, but he's never sung on an album — until now; gay characters are featured on a telenovela for the first time; the story behind "Blinded by the Light."

An Associated Press exposé details decades of alleged sexual harassment by the renown opera singer and conductor; the documentary “Cold Case Hammarskjöld” turned into a whodunnit; how did a little-known L.A. band end up opening for The Rolling Stones?

One of the few major music festivals in the U.S. that is not organized by a giant company, Outside Lands took over Golden Gate Park this weekend; Universal Pictures scraps "The Hunt," an R-rated satire in which elites hunt "deplorables" for sport.

In "Escape At Dannemora," director Ben Stiller goes inside a prison to tell the story of the inmates who broke out; comedian and SNL writer Julio Torres prefers humor about ordinary objects to politics; Geena Davis hopes her research institute and a new documentary will convince Hollywood the value of creating film and TV with a diverse cast of women and girls.

The offbeat comedian talks about his path from immigrant to "SNL" writer to star of an HBO stand-up special; Rolling Stone writer Elias Leight on the continuing practice of payola in the radio industry; an episode of Song Exploder with Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney.

Geena Davis is executive producer of the new documentary that explores the status of women in the film industry; David Rubin, the newly-elected president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; rock musician Ty Segall.

Nanfu Wang's documentary is a personal look at China’s former one child policy, which continues to reverberate there; The Emmy Awards will go without a host; on the 20th anniversary of "Eyes Wide Shut," a look at how its composer was chosen.

The wrongly-convicted former athlete and director Tom Shadyac discuss the path to making the movie; we revisit the documentary, "Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am," following her death; Bruce Lee's family is unhappy about his depiction in "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood."

Barak Goodman's documentary, “Woodstock: Three Days that Defined a Generation,” asks: Why did 400,000 young people trek across the country for a festival in the middle of nowhere?; music historian Andy Zax helped restore every Woodstock performance for a 38-disc boxed set; filmmaker Sam Jones on the influence of documentary director D.A. Pennebaker.

Today's show: The creators of "Sherman's Showcase" discuss the comedy and music in their sketch show. We discuss the portrayal of Bruce Lee in Tarantino's new film. Why Patricia Arquette wanted to co-star in "Otherhood." Then Indie duo The Bird and The Bee make a tribute album of Van Halen covers.

Actress Patricia Arquette, writer/director Cindy Chupack and producer Cathy Schulman talk about their new film and how middle-aged women are portrayed in Hollywood; has hip-hop reached a turning point in its inclusivity of black, gay artists?