The Business

After an investigation by reporter Gary Baum, the LA city attorney has filed charges against more than two dozen people involved with casting workshops that are allegedly paid auditions for minor roles. Baum tells us how these workshops became so prevalent, and casting director Billy DaMota explains his longstanding opposition to the practice. Plus, one last look at the major Oscar races.

Production was well under way on Disney's Zootopia when directors Rich Moore and Byron Howard concluded the film needed a major do-over. Breaking the news to animators was not easy. But the move paid off, and Zootopia is now Oscar-nominated for best animated feature. 

How busy is filmmaker Ava DuVernay? Well, between directing Disney's ' Wrinkle in Time, executive producing Queen Sugar on OWN and working the awards circuit for her Oscar-nominated doc 13th...really busy. She tells us why she's taken it all on, and how 13th is resonating with audiences post-election in ways she never could have predicted.

Director Raoul Peck's film about the essayist and activist James Baldwin was a decade in the making. Now, I Am Not Your Negro is Oscar-nominated for best documentary. Peck tells us how he got access to Baldwin's archives and why right now is the perfect time to learn about the late writer. 

Writer-director Damien Chazelle and composer Justin Hurwitz have been friends and collaborators since first meeting at Harvard. Together, they struggled for years to make an original movie-musical. Now, their film La La Land is up for a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations.

When Norman Lear decided to reboot the classic sitcom One Day at a Time, this time with a Latino family, he wanted a writer-producer who could offer an authentic voice to the project. He found that person in Gloria Calderón Kellett, who incorporated much of her own background into the show, including making the family Cuban.

Director Barry Jenkins and producer Adele Romanski tell us about making their Golden Globe-winning Moonlight, about a gay African American boy growing up surrounded by poverty and drugs in Miami. Plus, an all new awards season banter.

When documentarians Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens started working on Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, they could not have imagined it would end up being a posthumous tribute to both women. Originally set to air in March, HBO has moved up the film’s premiere to January 7. 

Veteran director Richard Donner talks about the adventures and behind the scenes antics that went into making the original comic book blockbuster, Superman, in 1978. Plus, an all new banter looking ahead to the big stories of 2017.

Banter buddies Matthew Belloni of The Hollywood Reporter and Michael Schneider of IndieWire and Variety join Kim Masters to mega-banter the year that was 2016. There were major mergers in play while others went away, Disney ruled the box office, Megyn Kelly took down Roger Ailes, and traditional TV ratings declined while thanks to Netflix, the number of shows continued to rise.