Yesterday, Meryl Streep attended the London premiere for “Mary Poppins Returns”, which turns out to be the season’s most anticipated film, and, even more surprisingly, a serious awards contender for Best Picture and Best Actress. Many pictures have been added to the video archive. A video clip of Meryl being interviewed at the premiere can be found below.

Today, “Mary Poppins Returns” has received a whopping 9 nominations for the 24th Annual Critics’ Choice Movie Awards. A few things need to be said about the Critics Choice Awards – which are presented annually by the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) since 1995. In recent years, especially with its tv broadcast, their nominations have been “accused” of nominating as many stars as possible – splitting acting categories to “regular” acting, acting in comedy and action in action – and trying to predict the Academy Awards nominations by altering their slots every year to include as many possible front-runners as possible (this year, there are 7 nominations each for Best Actor and Actress). Now, this is in no way said to diminish the Critics’ Choice Awards or the number of nominations for “Mary Poppins Returns”, although 2 of the 9 nominations go to Emily Blunt in 2 in different performance categories, for the same performance. You probably get what I mean :-) The winners will be revealed at the star-studded Critics’ Choice Awards gala, broadcast live on The CW Network on Sunday, January 13, 2019 from 7:00 – 10:00 pm ET (delayed PT).

Best Picture
Best Actress – Emily Blunt
Best Production Design – John Myhre, Gordon Sim
Best Costume Design – Sandy Powell
Best Visual Effects
Best Actress in a Comedy – Emily Blunt
Best Song – The Place Where Lost Things Go
Best Song – Trip a Little Light Fantastic
Best Score – Marc Shaiman

The Golden Globe nominations have been announced today, and it’s been a good day for “Mary Poppins Returns”. While the film’s release is still two weeks ahead of us, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has nominated the Rob Marshall musical in three key categories: Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Emily Blunt, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for Lin-Manuel Miranda and Best Original Score – Motion Picture for Mark Shaiman. The Golden Globes will be handed out quite early next year, on January 06, 2019.

Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy
Best Original Score

Disney’s Mary Poppins Returns doesn’t just mark the return of one indomitable character after 54 years; it also marks a reunion for two other powerful women who whip up certain magic together onscreen. Emily Blunt and Meryl Streep have now made three big-budget studio films together: 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada, playing a toiling assistant and her monstrous boss; 2014’s Into the Woods, as a peasant baker and the witch who cursed her womb; and now 2018’s Mary Poppins Returns, playing the enigmatic nanny and her gravity-challenged cousin Topsy, who’s perhaps the only person ever to disagree with Mary Poppins. “It is a bit hilarious that we always play people who are contentious with one another,” Blunt laughs, looking back on her relationship with Streep that’s now into its second decade. “From Prada to the Witch and the Baker’s Wife and now to cousins who drive each other insane, I did finally ask her, ‘When are we gonna play lovers or something?!’” Blunt laughs again. “She said, ‘Dream on.’”

But a dream is perhaps the best way to describe the friendship that has blossomed between the 35-year-old and the 69-year-old actors. On the Prada set, Blunt was a relative unknown in Hollywood with Streep a revered megastar — Blunt even cried when Streep first complimented her after wrapping. Years later, the tables have turned as Blunt now takes on the largest role of her career, with Streep supporting her with glee. “She’s divine,” Streep declares. Elaborating further, she almost downplays the magnitude of what it’s been like to watch Blunt grow into a role like Mary Poppins over the past decade. “I think Emily’s completely the same person that she was when I met her,” she insists. “In The Devil Wears Prada, she was some preposterously young age — I think she was 21? Ridiculous! — but she was completely the person that she is today. She was already a pretty fully-fledged grown up, or did a good impersonation of one.”

Lots of official promotion material for “Mary Poppins Returns” has been released by Disney Films over the last couple of days. There’s the official b-roll with lots of footage from behind the scenes, an interview with Meryl Streep on her character (she reveals her character’s full name, but I cannot understand it :-) can you?), two music videos from songs performed by Emily Blunt and Lin-Manuel Miranda and an additional television spot. All videos can be found in the video archive. Screencaptures from the b-roll and the interview have been added to the photo gallery.

Before Mary Poppins Returns arrives in movie theatres December 19, take a look at the below featurette, in which the stars and creative team discuss the joy behind bringing the magical nanny back to the screen. The original Disney film is nearing its 55th anniversary, and naturally, the prospect of returning to that world was daunting. But looking at the source material (P. L. Travers’ series), director Rob Marshall realized: “There was a real sense that there’s so much more story to be told.” Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman have penned a new score for the story—one that star Lin-Manuel Miranda asserts is filled with “incredible, enchanting original music.” “This is a film with great hope and spectacle,” adds Emily Blunt, who takes on the title role this time around, amid clips filled with laughter, dancing, and dayglow animation. “And it’s moving, so I think it’s a very important film to be making right now.” The all-star cast of the new movie also features Meryl Streep, Angela Lansbury, Colin Firth, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, and Dick Van Dyke. The featurette can be found in the video archive, while screencaptures have been added to the photo gallery.

Entertainment Weekly spills all the secrets on this month’s “Mary Poppins Returns” with the stars Emily Blunt and Lin-Manual Miranda gracing the cover. Here’s an excerpt from Meryl’s interview: As Topsy, the three-time Oscar winner has a scene-stealing supporting role in Walt Disney Pictures’ Mary Poppins Returns (in theaters Dec. 19). Streep’s character, who is a cousin to Mary Poppins, is an oddity who involuntarily spends every second Wednesday upside down. She visits to the Banks to fix family heirloom and sings the jazzy “Turning Turtle.” Streep took the role solely to work with Rob Marshall, who directed her in 2014’s Into the Woods. “Rob knew that I wanted in on whatever it was he did next. But I had no idea what he had in his head. And when he [and producer John DeLuca] invited me to talk through this idea, I thought, ‘They’re crazy, these two. They’re just insane. They’ve lost their minds,'” Streep, 69, says with a laugh in in Entertainment Weekly’s Nov. 16 issue (out now). “But It was such a big vision, and it was so ambitious that I said, ‘Oh, well, I want to be in it. Absolutely. Right away.'”

Working with the living legend was a dream come true for Lin-Manuel Miranda, who plays a lamplighter named Jack. “One of the greatest moments I experienced on set was Meryl. She was sort of in weird Mary Poppins aunt mode the whole time, and at one point she goes, ‘Hey, kids, wanna see a perfect pratfall?’ And just boom, face down, went from 90 degrees to flat. You haven’t seen Buster Keaton do a pratfall like this. Everyone rushed over like, ‘Meryl Streep has died!'” he recalls. “And then she just got up and was like, [wiping hands] ‘I learned that at Yale.'”

“Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” has been released on DVD and Blu-Ray in the United States and is already available on demand, so you can basically find it EVERYWHERE to own or rent. Those of you who have seen it in the theater (which includes probably everyone) know that Meryl Streep’s Donna, although talked about in length, is limited to a cameo performance by the end of the film – singing two songs nevertheless. So if you’d like to revisit her renditions of “My Love, My Life” and “Super Trouper”, make sure to grab your copy, or get the soundtrack, or both. Over 300 screencaptures from the Blu-Ray have been added to the photo gallery. Enjoy!

Some impressive casting news, according to The Playlist: One of our most anticipated films coming in the next year or so is the new project from Steven Soderbergh. No, not “High Flying Bird.” His other, other new project – “The Laundromat.” And while we already know that Antonio Banderas, Gary Oldman, and Meryl Streep are starring, we have learned just what other incredible actors are rounding out the cast and whom they might play in the upcoming true story about the infamous Panama Papers. We have learned that Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Parnell, James Cromwell, and Melissa Rauch have all joined the cast of the film. For those not aware, “The Laundromat” tells the true story of one of the largest money laundering schemes ever to be made public. The Panama Papers references the reams of documents that were handed over to authorities linking the money laundering to politicians and other powerful figures, thanks to a whistleblower with knowledge of the Mossack Fonseca law firm. It has already been reported that David Schwimmer will play an attorney in the film. And now we know that Cromwell will play Meryl Streep’s husband, with Rauch coming along as their daughter. In an “SNL” reunion, of sorts, Will Forte and Parnell will share scenes together as an obnoxious American duo in Panama. There’s no official release date for the film, as it was announced that Netflix would be handling the distribution. Filming began on Monday. You can read the complete article over at The Playlist.

According to Deadline, Netflix has committed to finance and release The Laundromat, the Steven Soderbergh-directed drama about the Panama Papers scandal. David Schwimmer has just joined a killer cast that is led by Gary Oldman, Meryl Streep and Antonio Banderas. Other cast circling include Will Forte and Riley Keough. The film has a script by Scott Z. Burns, based on the Jake Bernstein book Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite. Schwimmer will play Matthew Quirk, an attorney who speaks on behalf of one of the insurance companies after twenty elderly passengers die on a boating excursion. The boating company learned its insurance isn’t the large company it thought it was, but merely just a P.O. box in Nevis. Quirk would eventually kill himself after seeing no way out of the liability situation, but the incident triggers lawyers, government officials, and more to track down these shell companies. Those investigations lead to the laundering geniuses at the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, who created hundreds of thousands of ‘companies’ to help the wealthy avoid paying taxes. The scandal drew in several world leaders, including former UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Iceland Prime Minister Sigmunder Gunnlaugsson, the latter of whom resigned on April 5, 2016, after it was revealed he and his wife set up an offshore shell company in 2007 in the British Virgin Islands; he then sold his half of the company to his wife for $1 on the last day of 2009 to shield them from a new law that would have required him to declare his ownership as a conflict of interest. Among the swarms of famous people named in the leaked documents was current President of the United States Donald Trump — already embattled over charges his empire was built by avoiding taxes — and director Pedro Almodovar, Jackie Chan and Emma Watson. Bernstein was part of a team of journalists who formed the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists to break the Panama Papers story. The leak of data — 11 million records revealed — was the largest in corporate and government history.