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HBO Signature Synopses - Month of May 2009

HBO Signature Synopses - Month of May 2009

MUMBAI CALLING 05: DATING SEASON
Dev accepts a speaking engagement on behalf of Kenny. Kenny is initially reluctant to give the speech, but Dev convinces him. Kenny now relishes the prospect. As the date approaches Kenny gets more nervous. He arrives at the venue and realizes that he has forgotten his speech. With no notes and being continuously interrupted by Dev’s mobile phone, Kenny reverts to the speech he first heard from Dev. Much to Kenny’s surprise it gets a rousing response.

MUMBAI CALLING 06: MY MATE MUMBAI
Kenny has decided he’s had enough of India. In order to get home to London he must sort out the call center’s accounts. But Terri and Kenny realize that Dev has made such a mess of the credit card database that Kenny will not be going home anytime soon. Kenny’s frustration with Dev boils over and an aggrieved Dev is easily convinced into selling the credit card details to his shady friend Vijay. Meanwhile, the call center staff has been plagued by a nuisance calls from a lonely guy, desperate for company, and Kenny steps in to resolve the problem.

MUMBAI CALLING 07: ALL THAT GLITTERS IS NOT GLASS
Kenny wakes up in Terri’s bed but can hardly remember how he got there. Meanwhile, Philip, the owner of the company, is coming to Mumbai. Kenny rushes to get things at the call center in order. When Philip arrives, Kenny realizes Philip is Terri’s boyfriend, even though Philip is married. Philip offers Kenny a job back in the UK – organizing a bash for his wife. However, Philip discovers Kenny’s phone and underpants in Terri’s bed and fires him. But Terri makes a stand for Kenny and realizes his feelings for her might be mutual after all.

MY FELLOW AMERICANS
Once you’ve been the most powerful men in the world, what do you do next? Veterans Russell Kramer and Matt Douglas whoop it up as ex-presidents, sworn rivals who are forced to team up to save their reputations. Their foe is current president William Haney, who tries to blame a kickback scandal on them. Things turn serious when our heroes narrowly escape a murder attempt. Bickering constantly, the duo takes to the roads and the stage is set for madcap mayhem.
Starring: James Garner, Jack Lemmon, Lauren Bacall

PU 239
After being exposed to a deadly dose of radiation and made a scapegoat, a devoted father and husband in post- Soviet Russia impulsively steals a small amount of Pu-239 (weapons grade plutonium) and heads to Moscow. With just days to live and desperate to provide for his loving wife and young son, he gets caught up with the city’s low-level mobsters and the illegal trade of nuclear weapons, turning to an inept, wannabe gangster to help him sell the dangerous goods on the black market - with potentially deadly consequences for the whole world.
Starring: Radha Mitchell, Paddy Considine, Oscar Isaac

POWER
Politics is the game and power is the prize. A provocative glimpse of how media experts have replaced the old party bosses and the press as the movers and shakers of politics in the 1980s. Most importantly, he offers viewers a portrait of what power does to those who wield it and how it changes them and those they control. Pete St John is the hotshot media consultant who sells his services to the highest bidder, only to learn the dangers of pursuing and having too much political power.
Starring: Richard Gere, Gene Hackman, Julie Christie

PURE COUNTRY
Dusty Wyatt Chandler is a superstar in the country music world. He drops out of his high-strung celebrity life to rediscover his real country roots. Under the influence of his longtime manager, Dusty has watched his down-home country show gradually swell into an overwhelming spectacle of smoke, sparks and pyrotechnics. During one performance, Dusty walks out of his concert and winds up in his hometown, to re-discover the kind of love that he had previously only sung about.
Starring: George Strait, Lesley Ann Warren

SCREWED
Norm Macdonald stars as Willard Fillmore, a butler for Miss Crock, the president of a baked goods company. After he throws a tantrum, Willard learns that Miss Crock intends to fire him. He gets his friend, chicken-wing vendor Rusty Hayes to help him kidnap her precious dog for a million-dollar ransom. The dog escapes, but Miss Crock is still left a ransom note, which she assumes is for Willard. Now, Willard has to fake his own kidnapping and even his own death!
Starring: Danny DeVito, Dave Chappelle, Norm Macdonald

SHADOWLANDS
Commonly known as Jack, C.S Lewis taught at Oxford College during the 1930s, later becoming one of the most famous authors of modern literature. But before all that, he learns about love and all its joy and tragedy when his soulmate becomes terminally ill. Follow the real-life story of the author of the Narnia series beginning with “The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.”
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Debra Winger

SHAFT
New York city police detective, John Shaft (nephew of the original 1970 detective) has just arrested Walter Wade Jr, for a racially motivated murder. Shaft goes on a personal mission to ensure that Wade is brought to justice. And there is only one eyewitness – waitress Diane. Shaft’s co-officer Carmen is his only help to get Wade behind bars. However Wade uses his connections to get bail and sneak off to Switzerland. Two years later, Wade resurfaces and thirsting for revenge. Now both Shaft and Wade are hunting down the sole eyewitness to the murder. Will Shaft be able to get to her before Wade does?
Starring: Vanessa Williams, Samuel Jackson, Christian Bale

SHY PEOPLE
Writer Diana Sullivan wants to remove her drug-addict daughter Grace from the corruptive environs of Manhattan. When assigned to write an article about family trees, Diana takes her daughter and heads to Louisiana to seek out an elusive great-uncle, hoping to give Grace a new start in life.
Starring: Barbara Hershey, Jill Clayburgh

SWING SHIFT
Two women become good friends when their men are enlisted at the beginning of WW II. Kay Walsh is an ideal housewife. Her next door neighbor, Hazel Zanussi is a beautiful dance hall hostess. Both work on the Swing Shift of an airplane manufacturing company. A fellow worker Lucky Lockhart has had his eyes on Kay, and out of loneliness Kay allows Lucky into her home and her bed. On Lucky’s birthday, while Kay, Lucky and Hazel are celebrating, there is a knock on the door, it’s Jack on an unexpected furlough. Can Kay save her marriage?
Starring: Christine Lahti, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn

THE ACCUSED
Jodie Foster is the hard-living, fiercely independent Sarah Tobias, gang-raped in the back of a neighborhood bar. But that is only the beginning of her ordeal. Now Sarah finds herself battling the legal system, not once but twice, as she and her attorney go after both her attackers and the onlookers whose cheering fueled and encouraged the assault. A powerful and thought-provoking look at human nature and individual moral conscience, and a judicial process that treats the victim like a criminal.
Starring: Kelly McGillis, Jodie Foster

THE ASTRONAUT’S WIFE
A space hero. A beautiful school teacher. A marriage made in the stars, and a lifetime to discover their love – all that abruptly ends in two minutes. During his last mission in deep space, astronaut Spencer Armacost blacks out. After that, nothing about him is the same. He hides a horrifying secret – he has been taken over by something evil. Spencer’s wife, Jillian, begins having strange dreams related to the horrifying truth. When she becomes pregnant, she realizes it’s not a baby that she’s carrying inside her body, but something far more sinister.
Starring: Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Matt Damon returns as the trained assassin Jason Bourne in the third explosive installment of this smash hit espionage thriller series. Having lost his memory and the one person he loved, Bourne is forced to hunt down his past in order to find a future. Traveling from Moscow, Paris and London to Tangier and New York City, he continues his quest to find the real Jason Bourne – all the while trying to outmaneuver the scores of cops, federal officers and Interpol agents who have him in their crosshairs.
Starring: Matt Damon, David Strathairn, Julia Stiles

THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN
Beth is struggling to find a balance between raising three children and a photography career. At a high school reunion, she takes her eyes off three-year-old Ben, and he mysteriously disappears. A frantic search for him proves to be futile. Over time, Beth learns to cope with the tragedy. Nine years later, a boy the same age as Ben would have been turns up at her doorstep.
Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Whoopi Goldberg, Treat Williams

THE FOG OF WAR
An Oscar® winning documentary, by Errol Morris, the award-winning director of “First Person” and “The Thin Blue Line.” Built around more than 20 hours of interviews, this documentary explores his life of Robert McNamara, the former Secretary of Defense for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The former Secretary of Defense discusses the “eleven lessons” he learnt during his tenure, which involve his work as a bombing statistician during World War II, the Kennedy administration’s triumph during the Cuban Missile Crisis, as well as his failures in the Vietnam War.

THE MAN WITH TWO BRAINS
Stuck in an unhappy marriage, a neurosurgeon falls in love with a brain in a jar. He must find a new home for it. The perfect setting for a zany, madcap, screwball comedy.
Starring: Steve Martin, Kathleen Turner

THE MASK OF ZORRO
Don Diego de la Vega, the original Zorro must recruit a successor to face the resurgence of Spanish tyranny, in the form of his old nemesis Don Rafael Montero. Recruiting Alejandro Murieta to be de la Vega’s successor proves to be a difficult task, as it requires him to be transformed from a street rogue into a dashing cavalier. Things get a little hotter when the novice falls for Esperanza who is married to Montero and has a mysterious connection to de la Vega.
Starring: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas

THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH
Based on the best-selling classic by Edgar Allan Poe, The Masque of the Red Death tells the tale of an eighteenth century castle, hidden from the world. A costume ball about to begin. And a masked murderer, eager to teach the guests a new tango of terror. Unsuspecting guests find themselves worm-bait in a deadly game of hide and seek, and a by-the-numbers killing spree. Not wanting the suspense to kill them, the guest list gets shortened quickly. Does remaining survivor Rebecca have what it takes to confront The Masque Of The Red Death? What will be her fate? Survivor or statistic?
Starring: Frank Stallone, Herbert Lom, Brenda Vaccaro

THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE
One of the most idolized pin-ups of all time, Bettie Page had a fresh, breezy appeal that belied the pornographic content of her photos.
Starring: Jared Harris, Chris Bauer, Gretchen Mol

THE TUDORS EP. 11
Deadly plots abound as Henry moves to defy Pope Paul III in order to marry Anne Boleyn.

THE TUDORS EP. 12
As Christmas approaches, King Henry is busy courting Anne’s favor while simultaneously working to deny Queen Katherine access to his court. When Brandon points to rumors that she and Wyatt were lovers, Henry insists that he believes Anne’s denials as he prepares to take her to Calais to see the King of France. And even when Anne begins receiving death threats, she refuses to abandon her plans to be at Henry’s side. Cromwell presses the Archbishop of Canterbury to consent to the King’s will, even as More continues voicing his concerns over what it will mean for the English church.

THE TUDORS EP. 13
Following a deadly confrontation that pits Brandon’s men against those loyal to Sir Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s plans to marry Henry take on greater urgency when she becomes pregnant. Told that King Francis has not convinced the Pope to annul his marriage to Katherine, Henry forges ahead by asking that Reverend Cranmer be named Archbishop of Canterbury. Though both More and Fisher worry about the appointment, the Pope hopes it will keep Henry in Catholicism’s fold. However, no sooner does the Pope agree than Henry and Anne wed as Cranmer annuls the marriage to Katherine.

THE TUDORS EP. 14
Following the christening of his daughter, Elizabeth, Henry increases the pressure on England’s rebellious clergy to recognize his marriage to Anne and pledge their loyalty to him. Henry sends Mary to live at Hatfield where she will be one of Elizabeth’s attendants. While More and Fisher continue to defy Henry despite the punishment it will bring, Brandon honors his request, intent on using his position at the court to fight from within. Meanwhile, as Chapuys cautions Brereton against making another assassination attempt, before revealing that she is pregnant again, Anne presses her brother, George, to get rid of Henry’s mistress.

THE TUDORS EP. 15
With Fisher and More still refusing to sign an oath recognizing his authority, Henry steadfastly asserts that they will have to accept the consequences. Knowing that their martyrdom will only make matters worse, Cromwell asks More’s family to persuade him to sign. So, as Alice More begs her husband to save his life and their family from being driven into poverty, Meanwhile, as Queen Anne’s miscarriage prompts a stern warning from her father against jeopardizing their family’s standing with the King, news that Mary Boleyn is pregnant after secretly marrying a commoner leads to her banishment from the royal court.

THE TUDORS EP. 16
The deaths of Thomas More and Cardinal Fisher have prompted a declaration of heresy by Pope Paul III as the dissent over Henry’s break with Catholicism threatens to explode amid feelings that the executions were tantamount to murder. As Henry’s seemingly unquenchable lust leads him to keep a harem of women, Brereton tells Chapuys that the King is under the influence of witchcraft that can only be stopped by killing Anne. Following an announcement of the marriage of George Boleyn to Jane Parker, Cromwell reveals that his survey of religious houses has uncovered rampant corruption.

THE TUDORS EP. 17
As the exiled Katherine’s illness brings her closer to death, Anne’s obsession has brought on nightmares about her assassination. Though George cautions against doing anything to cause Katherine harm, Anne makes it clear to Henry that she sees the former Queen as a threat. Now that the survey of England’s religious houses is complete, Cromwell, Cranmer, and Boleyn push for their wealth be confiscated and transferred to the crown. However, with Cranmer’s wife calling for even stronger measures, Cromwell enlists an army of Protestant mercenaries from France to rid the kingdom of all remnants of Catholicism.

THE TUDORS EP. 18
As Anne obliges Henry’s request to make Jane Seymour one of her ladies-in-waiting, Chapuys tells Brereton of an autopsy that indicates Queen Katherine was poisoned. Though Henry hopes that his former wife’s death will pave the way for a new alliance, Chapuys tells him that, while the Emperor will ask the Pope to recognize Anne as the Queen and not to sign an order of excommunication, he insists that Mary, and not Elizabeth, be the named heir to the throne. As Boleyn warns Anne to be careful of the Seymour clan’s ambitions, Henry reveals his strong feelings for Jane.

THE TUDORS EP. 19
Following news that the child Anne lost in her latest miscarriage was deformed, Henry sends Cromwell to tell Edward Seymour of his intention to formally court his sister, Jane. And as Anne begs the French Ambassador to persuade King Francis to recognize Elizabeth as Henry’s rightful heir, and Cromwell moves to dissolve the nation’s religious houses and turn their treasures over to the King, Jane does her family’s bidding by sowing doubt in Henry’s mind about the legitimacy of his marriage.

THE TUDORS EP. 20
As the Executioner of Calais, Jean Rombaud, is making his way to London to carry out her death sentence, Queen Anne prays for her salvation and for the salvation of the nation. Her daughter, Elizabeth, has been declared a bastard and stripped of her right to inherit the throne in favor of Mary. In her final confession, Anne swears that she was never unfaithful. Meanwhile, Henry heads for the Seymours’ home at Wulfhall to formally ask Jane’s father for her hand.

THE WIRE 14: EBB TIDE
Detective Jimmy McNulty - exiled to police boat - finds the body of a woman floating in the Baltimore harbor. Bodie drives to Philly to make a connection for the Barksdale crew and Stringer Bell takes the train to New York to feel out the crew’s reticent suppliers. Major Valchek looks like a fool when his generous gift to a heavy Polish-American Catholic parish is trumped by Frank Sobotka - a rival in the local stevedores union. And on the waterfront, a shipping container destined for “The Greek” languishes in the sun with perishable cargo.
Starring: Dominic West

THE WIRE 15: COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Major Valchek gets back at Sobotka for the church gift fiasco and a feud begins. Avon Barksdale continues to run his empire from a prison cell - counseling his nephew D’Angelo and going after a guard who is harassing the organization’s convicted hit-man, Wee-Bey. On the waterfront, port police Officer Beatrice Russell gets stuck investigating the contraband found in The Greek’s container. McNulty lends a hand with the investigation, albeit for vindictive reasons. Ultimately, Detectives Bunk Moreland and Lester Freamon are assigned to help Russell investigate the deaths.

UNFORGIVEN
In this unflinchingly brutal portrait of the American West, William Munny is a former gunfighter and thief, struggling to overcome his dark past. Desperate for money to support his children, he accepts one final job: to kill a couple of sinister cowboys. Riding into town with his old partner, Ned Logan, Munny soon comes up against the local sheriff, Little Bill Daggett. Daggett is a hard-nosed lawmaker who intends to chase any trouble out of town the second it rides in. However, before Munny and Daggett are through with each other, there will be plenty of blood spilled.
Starring: Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman, Gene Hackman

URBAN LEGENDS: FINAL CUT
Amy Mayfield is a film student doing her film thesis on urban legends. But she realizes too late that her research is rearing its ugly head in reality as her crew members get killed one by one in mysterious accidents. Finding it a little hard to believe, she decides to get to the bottom of it before she too ends up six feet under like the rest of her crew.
Starring: Eva Mendes, Matthew Davis, Joseph Lawrence

VERTICAL LIMIT
Peter Garrett is a young spirited climber. So is his sister Annie. But his sister and her team members are trapped on the world’s second highest peak K2, and it is up to Peter to risk his and his own team members’ lives to save that of his sister and her team. Together with reclusive mountain man Montgomery Wick, they set out to brave the mighty winds and the chilling snow atop K2 – and to bring the trapped team back safely.
Starring: Chris O’Donnell, Scott Glenn, Robin Tunney

YELLOW
Amaryllis Campos, a young and beautiful dancer goes to New York after tragedy strikes her family. There, she befriends her neighbor Miles, an old poetry professor, and takes up a job at a strip club, becoming good at what she does. When true love comes calling, Campos has to decide what comes first and foremost in her life.
Starring: D.B. Sweeney, Roselyn Sanchez

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