Mary Poppins has topped a poll to find Britain's favorite festive film.

The 1964 movie musical, starring Dame Julie Andrews as a magical nanny, has been watched more than eight times by the average Briton over past Christmases.

The second most popular film for families to tune into is Home Alone, which has been watched just over seven times on average.

The Wizard of Oz and another Andrews classic, The Sound of Music, are third and fourth respectively, in the poll by U.K. TV company Freeview.

British actress Denise van Outen, a spokesperson for Freeview, says, "It's no surprise to he...

Tom Hanks is slated to play beloved moviemaker Walt Disney is a new film about the making of Mary Poppins.

The Forrest Gump actor is set to star opposite Emma Thompson in the movie, which chronicles Disney's battle to secure the rights to Mary Poppins. Author P.L. Travers rebuffed the mogul's efforts to convince her a big screen version of her books would be a good idea.

Rumors suggest it took Disney two decades to be given the green light and he had to surrender script approval rights to the stubborn author. When filming got underway in the early 1960s, Disney and Travers clashed over...

“Breakfast at Tiffany’s” is the kind of movie that feels familiar the first time you watch it, and seems fresher and brighter every time afterwards. It’s iconic. It’s Audrey Hepburn. It’s fashion and the little black dress.

It’s Moon River, a song “Sex & the City” fans may remember Carrie and Big dancing to in the show’s post-9/11 love letter to New York.

It’s New York at its most beautiful, romantic, and hopeful.

While the city has changed and there are certain details (Mickey Rooney) that may not be considered “timeless,” Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly is the type of stylish modern w...

Jennifer Garner took her daughter Violet on a horse and carriage ride around New York's Central Park earlier this week.

The mother and daughter played pat-a-cake and laughed as they took in the sights. Later, Jen took her eldest daughter to see the Broadway production of "Mary Poppins."

Jennifer is one of the most down-to-earth celebrities we know. Last month she bought gas to help two stranded strangers get on their way. The actress was driving in Los Angeles when she came across two helpless women whose car had run out of fuel.

More: Celeb Photo Features | Fashion Pho...

The handwritten lyrics to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" are to go under the hammer at a memorabilia auction in California next month.

The late pop superstar gave his scribbled notes, signed by the King of Pop himself, to a producer pal.

Marc Kruskol, spokesman for auction house Profiles in History, says, "This piece has been in private hands since being written. It's an incredible piece from the legendary King of Pop and it's in fine condition."

The "Beat It" lyrics won't be the highlight of the memorabilia sale - the pink satin gown Marilyn Monroe wore in the "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best F...

Tom Cruise is grooming his daughter Suri to follow in his acting footsteps - admitting he would "love it" if she showed more interest in his career.

Cruise and actress wife Katie Holmes have already toted the three year old to magical musical Mary Poppins in New York and Los Angeles to gauge her interest in theater.

And the Top Gun star admits he would be elated if the tot took up a career in acting, and shared the excitement he has for his craft.

He tells OK! Magazine, "I'd love it. Acting is work I love. I love to create life and give energy, create characters and create stori...

On Christmas Day a brand new musical hits the theaters, titled "Nine," and it got Starpulse thinking about the musical genre. The hits on Broadway always keep people wanting more, and over the years musicals have been beloved on the big screen as well. They've won Oscars, attracted huge movie stars, and everyone loves a good dance routine. Here's a look at the best movie musicals in no particular order.

"The Sound of Music," made in 1965, is an Academy Award winning movie and one of the most successful film musicals of all time. After being adjusted for inflation, it is rumored the movi...

Rapper Eminem is determined to prove he once had a relationship with Mariah Carey - he has threatened to release intimate photos and voicemail tapes from their affair in a shocking new song.

The Stan hit-maker sparked a war of words with the superstar earlier this year by hinting that he had slept with her in his track Bagpipes From Baghdad. The controversial song upset Carey and her husband Nick Cannon, who publicly criticized the rapper for his crude lyrics.

Carey went onto call Eminem "delusional" in her latest single Obsessed and dressed up as man in the video, with her male ali...

Someone recently emailed me for a sightseeing recommendation for an upcoming journey to New York City. It seemed a bit odd because although I visit often, I have never lived within the city walls. I recommended the usual - a tour of NBC, shopping in Soho, a slow walk through The Strand bookstore, etc. My email pal thought I was joking.

Apparently she was not looking for a tour guide, she was looking for film spots. Specifically, she wanted restaurants that appeared in her favorite films. So with a little bit of research, I found the following:

Katz's Deli - New York City (When ...

In the wake of the current brain-draining drive to remake just about everything Hollywood has ever had to offer, there are some films that are so sacred they should never be touched. This is a blatant retort to the deluge of watered down franchises, remakes, medium changes, etc. It ranges in levels of snark from low to apocalyptic strength.

My frustration with this extremely long trend came to a fever pitch after watching the Obsessed trailer. Anyone even peripherally familiar with Fatal Attraction could easily catch the obvious, racially spurred recasting of a classic film.

...

The first three weeks of the summer movie season started out a bit slow, but from here the momentum really starts to build. There's a spike in the number of movies premiering with six coming out this week, two of which are sequels. One of those sequels is a movie I've been anticipating since I heard it was in development. Hint: it involves giant robots, and it's not "Transformers 2."

Opening in cinemas this week are "Terminator Salvation," "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian," "Dance Flick," "Easy Virtue," "The Girlfriend Experience," and "The Boys: The Sherman Brothers...

Writer/director David Goyer (Blade: Trinity, The Invisible, Batman Begins) gives a terrifying glimpse into the life of the undead in The Unborn and follows a young woman pulled into a world of nightmares when a demonic spirit haunts her and threatens everyone she loves.

Starring Odette Yustman, Meagan Good, Cam Gigandet and Gary Oldman, The Unborn is a thrilling tale of one woman's survival as she fights a family curse and struggles to shut a doorway from beyond our world that has been pried open by someone who was never born.

In The Unborn Odette Yustman plays the babysitter, h...

Fans of movie musicals know that most of their favorites, like "Grease," "West Side Story," "The Sound of Music," and "Oklahoma!" were adapted from popular Broadway plays. However, the trend in recent years has been to flip that formula around by taking a big-screen hit and trying to turn it into a small-stage sensation.

Disney has had great success with its theatrical adaptations, starting in 1994 with the critically-acclaimed "Beauty and the Beast." The hits kept coming with stage productions of "The Lion King," "Mary Poppins," and, most recently, "The Little Mermaid."

VIDEO: T...

There are many talented people in Hollywood who have won a coveted Oscar, and there are so many talented winners that it's difficult to just name a few.

Daniel Day-Lewis is known as one of the most selective actors in the industry; he's starred in only four movies in the last 10 years. Whenever Day-Lewis has a movie being released, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences stands up and takes notice. He's won two Academy Awards for Best Actor: His first was in 1989 for his role as Christy Brown in "My Left Foot" and the other in 2007 for his work as Daniel Plainview in "There Wil...

(Hollywoodchicago) – By its very nature, colonialism is bad karma waiting to happen.

You are a sovereign nation with weaponry and a desire for treasure. While you invade and take over a country with that treasure, it also comes with a society you don’t understand. You stir in religious dogma, native slavery and the defiling of lands and create an evil stew that’s ripe to boil over.

The country of India was a prime example of this scenario. The British got their bad karma handed back to them as depicted in the new film “Before the Rains”.

Set in 1937, the film begins with a Br...

Pop diva Mariah Carey denies she has loose sexual morals - instead likening herself to wholesome nanny Mary Poppins. The Hero star knows she is portrayed as a "ditzy moron" by the media but insists she has high morals when it comes to dating.

The 37-year-old says, "It's a dichotomy, I understand. I understand that people think I'm a ditzy moron."

The once-married superstar, who has been romantically linked with Yankees captain Derek Jeter and rapper Eminem, warns fans they'd be wrong to think of her as promiscuous, insisting she's never even had a one-night stand.

She says, "...

Happy Birthday to British DJ and rapper Dizzee Rascal (1985), baseball slugger Mark McGwire (1963), Puerto Rican actor Esai Morales (1962), comedic actor Randy Quaid (1950), Panamanian baseball star Rod Carew (1945), Mary Poppins star Julie Andrews (1935), Harry Potter's first "Dumbledore" Sir Richard Harris (1930), "Hannibal Smith" from The A-Team George Peppard (1928), Happy Days actor Tom Bosley (1927), 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter (1924), comedic actor Walter Matthau (1920), and Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz (1903).

Scarlett Johansson and her The Nanny Diaries co-star Donna Murphy are campaigning to take the movie to the stage - as a new musical. The actresses bonded during the making of the Mary Poppins-esque film, about a struggling New York babysitter, and now they want to turn the project into a sing-along stage spectacular.

Murphy explains, "There are references to Mary Poppins in the film and I'd really like to see The Nanny Diaries: The Musical. I hope they cast me in that. Scarlett and I love to sing and (producer) Harvey Weinstein wanted us to have a little duet. He would come on the set...

The Office star Lucy Davis finds it impossible to master an American accent - and insists she's missed out on acting roles because of her speech impediment. The actress, who plays Dawn in the British version of the Ricky Gervais series, has appeared in U.S. TV series Ugly Betty and Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip - but admits she's hopeless when it comes to imitating her co-stars.

She says, "I can't do an American accent to save my life. I've had so many lessons, but I just sound a bit less like Mary Poppins. When I was first here three years ago, I went for a part and they said, 'That'...

A host of rockers including Shane MacGowan, Nick Cave, Bryan Ferry, Beth Orton and Pete Doherty are teaming up to pay tribute to the Disney songbook this weekend. Sunday's one-off event, Forest Of No Return - Hal Willner Presents The Vintage Disney Songbook, at London's South Bank Center will see the left-field stars playing their favorite songs from Disney movies.

Among the performances will be Babyshambles front man Doherty playing Chim Chiminey from Mary Poppins and Jarvis Cocker covering I Wanna Be Like You from The Jungle Book.

Legendary musician Van Dyke Parks is organizin...

Environmental crusader Cameron Diaz is hoping to turn the next Shrek movie all green - by asking producers to consider a film with an eco-friendly message. The actress, who plays ogre Princess Fiona in the Shrek films, has started campaigning to make the fourth film all about the environment.

She says, "That's something I've been on Jeffrey's (producer Katzenberg) ear about, that the swamp possibly could be in danger." And Diaz has the backing of her animated mother in the Shrek films, Julie Andrews. The Mary Poppins star says, "What better way to get a message across than with someth...

Hit musical Mary Poppins has netted 11 nominations for next month's Outer Critics Circle Awards, including Best Broadway Musical. The production, based on the 1964 movie of the same name, is also nominated for Best New Score, Best Director Of A Musical and Best New Score while its stars Gavin Lee and Ashley Brown picked up Best Actor and Best Actress nods respectively.

Elsewhere, Tom Stoppard play The Coast Of Utopia scored nine nominations,

including Best Broadway Play, where it is up against Coram Boy, Frost/Nixon and

Radio Golf.

The Outer Critics Circle Awards are seen as a...

Screen classic West Side Story has topped a poll naming the greatest screen musicals of all time, beating out competition from such favorites as Singin' In The Rain and Mary Poppins. The 1961 movie, which starred Natalie Wood, was scored by Leonard Bernstein. Second place in British newspaper The Observer's poll is Gold Diggers Of 1933.

The 10 Greatest Screen Musicals are:

1. West Side Story (1961)

2. Gold Diggers Of 1933 (1933)

3. Singin' In The Rain (1952)

4. Jailhouse Rock (1957)

5. Mary Poppins (1964)

6. Oliver! (1968)

7. Cabaret (1972)

8. Grease (1978) ...

"I've got this reputation for actors and all of that, but you're allowed to have male friends." Sienna Miller insists her reputation for dating her co-stars and other actors is unfounded.

"I had a very religious approach to developing the character. It's not like the director said, `Cut!' and everyone was able to laugh and go get a drink and talk about something extraneous." Jared Leto on portraying John Lennon's killer Mark David Chapman in Chapter 27.

"It didn't actually sound like her because she was kind of supposed to be playing a thousand-year-old lady." Madonna's daughter L...

Lindsay Lohan is worried about an upcoming role in which she has to talk with a British accent because she dreads her efforts being compared to Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke's performance in 1960s movie Mary Poppins features a notoriously unconvincing London cockney accent, and Lohan is keen to avoid any comparisons with her turn in "A Woman Of No Importance."

She says, "I'm going to London in the spring to make a movie with Keira Knightley. It's a period piece and my character has a British accent. But it's crazy. If I hang out with a British person for an hour or so, I start talking just ...

Happy Birthday to British DJ and rapper Dizzee Rascal (1985), baseball slugger Mark McGwire (1963), Puerto Rican actor Esai Morales (1962), comedic actor Randy Quaid (1950), Panamanian baseball star Rod Carew (1945), Mary Poppins star Julie Andrews (1935), Harry Potter's first "Dumbledore" Sir Richard Harris (1930), "Hannibal Smith" from The A-Team George Peppard (1928), Happy Days actor Tom Bosley (1927), 39th President of the United States Jimmy Carter (1924), comedic actor Walter Matthau (1920), and Russian pianist Vladimir Horowitz (1903).

Steven Spielberg's 1982 blockbuster ET: The Extra-Terrestrial has been named the best family film of all time by British TV network Channel 4. Animated hit Shrek came second in the top 100 countdown. Disney classic Mary Poppins claimed the third spot.

The top ten is as follows:

1. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial

2. Shrek

3. Mary Poppins

4. Pirates of the Caribbean

5. Toy Story

6. The Lion King

7. Back to the Future

8. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

9. Star Wars

10. The Wizard of Oz

(This news article provided by World Entertainment News Network)