The Frame

With the State of the Union upon us, Bill Pullman recalls his roles as Commander-in-Chief; trans actress Daniela Vega plays a groundbreaking trans role; Rachel Morrison is the first woman nominated for an Academy Award in cinematography.

The Grammys are slammed for under-representing women; a New York Times essay argues that the Time's Up movement is subverted by award shows; Aimee Mann won the Best Folk Album Grammy — one of the few women to take home a trophy.

How did Pati Jinich, the granddaughter of Eastern European immigrants, end up hosting a popular Mexican food show?; the NAMM show is a dizzying array of instruments and gadgets; The Secret Sisters are nominated for best folk album at the Grammys.

The Irish actor traverses big budget movies like "Star Wars" and indie films like “A Futile and Stupid Gesture”; a new USC study shows how women are underrepresented in pop music; Benj Pasek and Justin Paul are nominated for the Broadway musical, “Dear Evan Hansen.”

Best jazz album nominee Billy Childs talks about how L.A. inspired his hybrid style; as the music industry gathers for the Grammys, what are its challenges?; two filmmakers step out from the shadow of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki.

Kyle Buchanan of Vulture.com and film critic Amy Nicholson maintain that younger and more diverse nominees are a result of the academy broadening its membership; "Baby Driver" director is a Grammy nominee for the film's pop-heavy soundtrack.

John Horn chats with Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal about their ode to Oakland; the SAG Awards put the spotlight on women and the road ahead to gender equality on Hollywood; PJ Morton is nominated for best R&B album (“Gumbo”) and best R&B song (“First Began”).

A report from John Horn at Sundance, where the festival offerings include a film about a certain Supreme Court justice; Pacific Standard Time LA/LA includes a performance festival with Latino/a artists from the U.S., Mexico and South America.

"Small Mouth Sounds" was inspired by the playwright's experience at a three-day silent retreat; the bro-centric Spike TV channel is re-branded as The Paramount Network; composer Gabriel Kahane took a cross-country train trip and the result was a song cycle about Trump-era America.

Matt Ingebretson and Jake Weisman's "Corporate" is a workplace comedy that heads into some very bleak territory; Rachel Morrison was behind the camera for "Mudbound" and "Black Panther"; Harvey and Bob Weinstein are reportedly pushing for their former studio, Miramax, to buy The Weinstein Co.

The Beijing-based Wanda Group financed "Southpaw," just the latest example of Chinese investments in Hollywood; The Next MacGyver contest hopes to encourage women engineers with the promise of a TV pilot; Juilliard-trained Brad Segal has become the go-to composer for reality shows.

The British actor reunites with director Bill Condon to play a 93-year-old version of Sherlock Holmes in "Mr. Holmes" (pictured); Chinese authorities have returned the passport of dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who had been unable to leave the country since 2011; the makers of the documentary about crowd-funding, "Capital C," financed their film through a crowd-funding campaign.

Noted muralist Kent Twitchell (pictured) has created a new work for the Special Olympics; playwright Todd Almond was inspired by Matthew Sweet's 1991 album, "Girlfriend," for his musical about growing up gay; the Teragram Ballroom tries to carve out a niche on the local live music landscape.

Kurt Sutter has been writing film scripts while working on demanding TV shows, and now his first feature, "Southpaw" (pictured), is being released; the singer Miguel talks about growing up mixed-race in his beloved L.A.; the box office for "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl" and "Dope" hasn't measured up to their indie darling hype.

A landmark album from 1966 (pictured) pairing the singer and bandleader is revisited as part of a Sinatra tribute at the Hollywood Bowl; YouTube is betting that audiences will pay for a commercial-free service; Camp Reel Stories is a summer camp designed to introduce teenaged girls to filmmaking.

Lisa Hanawalt's lifelong equine obsession pays off in her role as production designer for the animated series, "BoJack Horseman" (pictured); with embassies re-opening in Washington and Havana, cultural exchange could be on the upswing; costume designers for superhero movies take comic book drawings and turn them into flashy but practical outfits.

The film's director, Peyton Reed, says Marvel's smallest superhero (pictured) has always had a bit of an inferiority complex; Disney chief Bob Iger gave a preview this week of the long-in-the-works resort and theme park; Kristina Wong is out to destroy stereotypes of Asian women.

The host of "Comedy Bang! Bang!" (pictured) didn't get an Emmy nomination for the show, but he and his staff will write jokes for Emmy host Andy Samberg; Grantland's Andy Greenwald on the Emmy nods; Kyle Patrick Alvarez revisits an infamous episode in "The Stanford Prison Experiment."

The Emmy nominations will be announced on July 16, but have the awards lost their luster?; Inara George and Greg Kurstin, aka The Bird and the Bee (pictured), are back with a new album after a five-year gap; writer and performer Sandra Tsing Loh's new stage show draws, as usual, on just about anything she sees and hears.

The feature film "Tangerine" (pictured), directed by Sean Baker, was ingeniously shot on an iPhone; a report from the Berklee College of Music calls for transparency in the record business; Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim turn their twisted humor into a parody of a self-help book.

A new documentary follows comedian Tig Notaro (pictured) after her cancer diagnosis and double mastectomy; 'True Detective' is shot in Southern California, but avoids the usual postcard locales; Comic-Con teased audiences with some of the most anticipated films in nerd culture.

“The Gospel at Colonus,” the 1980s musical that blends gospel and greek tragedy still resonates with people today; Why comic-con and comic books appeal to people with disabilities; We get the highlights from the first days of Comic-Con and how thousands of fake weapons get real inspections at the Con.