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Andre Braugher, the dynamic actor known for his outstanding work on such shows as Homicide: Life on the Street and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has died. He was 61.

Braugher died Monday after a brief illness, his longtime rep Jennifer Allen told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death turned out to be lung cancer.

Braugher starred as master interrogator Det. Frank Pembleton on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street for the first six seasons of the show’s acclaimed 1993-99 run, then played another cop, Capt. Raymond Holt — this time against type and for laughs — on the 2013-21 Fox-nbc sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

He won his first Emmy in 1998 for outstanding lead actor in a drama series for Homicide after a season that featured one of its most memorable episodes, “Subway.” That was a two-hander in which Pembleton tries to unearth whether a man (Vincent D’Onofrio) pinned between a Baltimore subway train...

From the visionary mind of the man that brought us Slink and After School Massacre, comes a new kind of cinematic experience, Absolute Vow, an adaptation from Judges 11, in the Old Testament.

Biblical scholars have called it the strangest story in the Holy cannon, the unsettling tale of Jephthah, who was faced with a very difficult decision; sacrifice his only daughter, or break the vow he made to God Almighty.

The film is Frolic Pictures’ most profound, intricate and complicated production thus far. The bizarre story has been on Masters’ heart for some time, and finally his Bible epic will be made and will give new meaning to the faith-based film, that also has elements of horror, fantasy and sensationalism.

The movie is rumored to be shot on 16mm black and white film, with a cast of thousands. Hundreds of men have constructed the massive Biblical sets needed to bring...

Exclusive: Relativity and the Bandito Brothers scored a #1 domestic opening when they brought Act Of Valor about U.S. Navy Seals to the big screen in February 2012 and grossed over $70M all in. Now the pair are re-teaming on another R-rated gritty actioner – this time about elite Swat officers in the upcoming sequel. Relativity has acquired the worldwide rights to finance, produce and distribute Act of Valor 2. I’ve learned Scott Wiper (The Condemned, A Better Way To Die) is attached to write and direct and the Bandito Brothers will produce again. A year ago, Relativity Television announced it would produce a scripted drama series based on the original film in collaboration with the Bandito Brothers but it’s still in development. The first film was based on an original script by Kurt Johnstad (300) and directed by Bandito Brothers partners Mike ‘Mouse’ McCoy and Scott Waugh. It featured a group of active-duty U.

It’s another race against time to save one’s family. During the American Film Market this week, Summit Entertainment released the first poster and official synopsis for “The Cold Light of Day” this week. The film stars Henry Cavill (“Man of Steel,” “The Tudors”), Bruce Willis (“The Sixth Sense,” “Die Hard”), Sigourney Weaver (“Aliens,” “Avatar”) and Veronica Echegui (“My Name Is Juani,” “Bunny and the Bull”). Here is the official synopsis: When Will Shaw (Henry Cavill) arrives in Spain for a weeklong sailing vacation with his family, the stressed young business man is not in a holiday mood. His startup company just went under and his tense relationship with his disciplinarian father Martin (Bruce Willis) only makes matters worse. But when the family is kidnapped by what turns out to be intelligence agents hell-bent on recovering a mysterious suitcase, Will suddenly finds himself on the run. His whole world...

While reading this Variety article about a thriller called “The Cold Light of Day” landing at Summit Entertainment, the name Scott Wiper rung a bell in my head. He’s not really a known name in Mainstream America, but I remember him from 2000’s “A Better Way to Die”, a movie that he wrote, directed, and starred in. It’s one of those direct-to-dvd movies where the leading man doesn’t even get his name at the top of the marquee because he just wasn’t famous enough at the time. I thought Wiper did a bang-up good job on the movie, and really liked “Die” for what it was — a direct-to-dvd shoot’em up action movie. Wiper has since gone on to write and direct the Stone Cold Steve Austin actioner “Condemned”, which I haven’t seen, but I plan to give it a whirl now that I know Wiper was responsible for it.

Lionsgate

The posters for The Condemned include the tagline "10 People Will Fight. 9 People Will Die. You Get to Watch."

They ran out of space before they could include the words " ... and be Bored Silly" by this D-grade Running Man ripoff, starring World Wrestling Entertainment superstar Steve Austin as one of a group of death row cons (including a couple of women) who fight for their freedom on a streaming webcast orchestrated by a ratings-mad producer.

As off-putting and ridiculous as it is ponderous, this WWE Films enterprise should have been condemned to fight for space on the DVD shelves rather than be thrust upon unsuspecting moviegoers, but distributor Lionsgate obviously has other ideas.

Directed by Scott Wiper (2000's equally derivative A Better Way to Die), from a script he penned with Rob Hedden, the story centers on an egotistical TV producer (Robert Mammone, with a seeming nod in the direction of Joe Francis) who's determined to get the kind of viewers for reality programming that broadcasters can no longer deliver.

His brainchild involves corralling 10 condemned killers, with names like the German, the Italian, the Russian and Paco, and let them go at one another on a remote island, played by Australia.

The last man standing wins his freedom, and the producer pockets millions.

But a potential spoiler has arrived in the intimidating form of Jack Conrad (Austin), a good ol' Lubbock, Texas, boy, sentenced to death in an El Salvador prison with a covert past and a real sense of decency beneath that menacing brawn.

He proves to be a considerable match for resident sicko McStarley (Vinnie Jones), a sadistic British special forces agent with a history of rape, torture and murder.

All the ensuing gratuitous violence and mock moralizing about society's voyeuristic craving for this kind of stuff might have been met with more revulsion had the movie not been so dopey and tedious.

While some of those contestants blow up real good (they're outfitted with ankle-bracelet bombs that discharge if they are tampered with), the lags in between are killer, and the dialogue isn't even B-movie worthy.

Austin, who has proved himself a capable actor before on Nash Bridges and in the Adam Sandler version of The Longest Yard, does his stoic thing but hasn't been handed the sufficient tools to work with by Wiper and Hedden.