The Frame

Rankine, whose poetry has examined everyday racism in America, and Wolfe, whose music addresses issues of the American worker, were both named MacArthur Foundation fellows; as the Fall TV season launches, we visit with producer Betsy Beers at Shondaland, one of the most successful companies in the industry.

Diavolo Dance Theatre is reinventing modern dance by combing architecture and wildly physical choreography; media critics have been piling on NBC for going soft on the GOP nominee, and now late night host Samantha Bee has joined the fray; Richard Nelson keeps his election-themed plays current by writing until the last minute.

The new documentary, “The Lovers and the Despot,” tells the true story of what happened in 1978 when Kim Jong-il ordered the kidnapping of a filmmaking couple from South Korea to jumpstart North Korea's movie industry; William Bell has revived the classic Stax sound; a new report shows that the music business is actually making money in the streaming age.

Playwright and performer Lucy Alibar draws on her Southern childhood for “Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up"; Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang, who won a writing Emmy for "Master of None," talk about their approach to diversity; the Toronto International Film Festival kicked off a lot of Academy Award talk.

Kent McCord of the 1960-70s TV cop show, "Adam-12," which was produced in partnership with the LAPD. McCord says a show about cops who aren't "edgy" wouldn't sell in today's TV business; In advance of TV's big awards night, we discuss what goes into an Emmy campaign, and how valuable is a nomination or a win in this era of "too much TV"?

Cheo Hodari Coker, creator and showrunner of the Netflix series "Luke Cage," unpacks the idea of building a show around a superhero who also happens to be a "bullet-proof black man" in a hoodie; Can Pandora and Amazon be the next disruptors in the streaming music space? They hope so.

The documentary "Audrie & Daisy" examines the sexual assault and cyber-shaming of two teen girls; with its third album, the band Local Natives remains entrenched in Silver Lake's indie rock scene; a group of songwriters is challenging the Dept. of Justice's control over royalty rates.

How do unconscious biases affect hiring practices in Hollywood? To dig deeper into this issue, Cathy Schulman (Oscar-winning producer/Women In Film) and Judith Williams (Global Head of Diversity at Dropbox) put Frame host John Horn to the test as if he's a studio executive; In 2005 Jackie Lopez co-founded the hip hop troupe "Versa Style" to teach kids not only how to dance but the cultural history behind hip hop.

"Kicks" filmmakers discuss how being outsiders who didn't fit society's views of manhood fueled the making of their lyrical coming-of-age drama; A new documentary explores why Brad Bird's 1999 animated film "The Iron Giant" was a critical darling, but a box office bomb; Inside Nate Parker's "The Birth of a Nation" press conference at TIFF; Can you scream like Nicholas Cage?

Every August, cultural festivals take over the Scottish city of Edinburgh with thousands of performances taking place day and night. This year The Frame host John Horn immersed himself in shows and brings an audio postcard of his creative excursion; TV reporter Whitney Friedlander joins us to preview some new and returning television shows that are worthy of our time and DVR space this fall.

There were surprises ("Green Book"! Olivia Colman!) and some history was made (Hannah Beachler, Ruth Carter). John Horn recaps the show with film critic Claudia Puig and L.A. Times film reporter Jen Yamato.

John Horn and Rebecca Keegan of The Hollywood Reporter co-host the hour-long special, which features interviews with many nominees, including Glenn Close, Rami Malek, Spike Lee and Rachel Weisz.

Bo Burnham's script won a top award from the Writers Guild, but it wasn't nominated for an Oscar; there's now an algorithm that writes movie scripts; Anthony Wilson's album of songs and photographs.

Twenty years after its premiere, the musical based on E.L. Doctorow's novel gets an elaborate revival at the Pasadena Playhouse; unpacking the Jussie Smollett story; what to expect (and not to expect) at the Academy Awards this weekend.

The prolific photographer talks about the survey that chronicles 50 years of documenting pop culture and politics; Hollywood Reporter TV critic Daniel Fienberg on the state of television.

In 1993, Lorena Bobbitt became famous for cutting off her husband's penis, but a new Amazon docu-series reveals the more complicated story; how the Oscar-nominated sound editors of "First Man" conveyed the anxiety of space flight; the Hollywood guilds spread awards love.

Barry Jenkins talks about his adaptation of James Baldwin's novel, and composer Nicholas Britell explains and demonstrates how he created the film's score.

The singer/songwriter is part of country music royalty, but her politics are out of the Nashville mainstream; the documentary about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, "RBG," is up for an Academy Award.

Colombia's official Oscar entry for foreign language film did not make the final cut of nominees, but many critics say it should have; the microscope of the #MeToo era has found pop music's Ryan Adams; the Oscar-nominated sound editors from "A Quiet Place."

The actress has an Academy Award nomination for her supporting role in the period drama; The Academy of Motion Pictures has stirred up a hornet's nest by pulling four awards from the Oscars telecast; Arturo O’Farrill took his New York-based Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra to the U.S.-Mexico border to record an album.

"Period. End of Sentence." is about students in North Hollywood helping girls in India stay in school by providing access to sanitary products; "A Night at the Garden" is about a 1939 Nazi Party rally in ... Madison Square Garden!; Judithe Hernandez is the first Chicana to have a solo show at the Museum of Latin American Art.

After 45 years as a working actress she has seven Academy Award nominations, but no wins. After picking up this year's Screen Actors Guild award, could this be Close's year?; the Grammy Awards made a dramatic improvement in its representation of women artists.