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Sideshow: Mariah Carey directs her first feature film

Sofia, Joe & Sinatra Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello sashayed to Frank Sinatra singing "The Way You Look Tonight" for their first dance as a married couple at a party reception Sunday.

Mariah Carey directs and stars in a family holiday story to be shown on the Hallmark Channel. Brian Douglas
Mariah Carey directs and stars in a family holiday story to be shown on the Hallmark Channel. Brian DouglasRead more

Mariah Carey, film auteur

"I did it for the love of just doing it," Mariah Carey says of directing her first feature, A Christmas Melody, in which she also costars. "It was a great experience."

A music-infused holiday TV movie set to premiere Dec. 19 on the Hallmark Channel, the film stars Lacey Chabert as a fashion designer whose New York business fails, forcing her to move back to her Ohio hometown with her daughter (10-year-old Broadway thesp Fina Strazza) in tow.

Carey plays her old high school rival, and Brennan Elliott costars as a hunky music teacher. "I hope people want to sit down and watch it with their families during the Christmas season," Carey tells USA Today. Strazza sings Carey's "Oh Santa!" in the film.

"I changed the lyrics so that it would fit for this 9-year-old girl and for the storyline," said Carey. Alas, the 45-year-old pop star does not perform any songs herself.

Sofia, Joe & Sinatra

Sofía Vergara and Joe Manganiello sashayed to Frank Sinatra singing "The Way You Look Tonight" for their first dance as a married couple at a party reception Sunday.

"There were lots of very sweet moments," Anonymous Source tells People.

Vergara, 43, and Manganiello, 38, who wrote their own vows, wed in Palm Beach, Fla. She walked down the aisle on the arm of her 23-year-old son, Manolo Gonzalez-Ripoll Vergara, to an instrumental version of Amanda McBroom's "The Rose."

Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan-Tatum danced with the couple at the party.

He felt Redmayne's voltage

How powerful is the star power emanating from Eddie Redmayne?

Tom Hooper, who helmed Redmayne's new pic, The Danish Girl, says he first directed the Oscar winner in 2005's Elizabeth I, which featured the then-23-year-old Redmayne in a tiny, tiny role - but one that had him share a couple of lines with Helen Mirren.

"When we shot that scene, the rawness of that performance" hit him hard, Hooper tells People.

"With English actors, you often have that emotional reserve, and it was such a brilliant moment that I vowed, then and there, that, even 10 years ago, I wanted him to be the lead in a film."

U2 reschedules Paris show

U2, which was forced by last week's terror attacks to scrap its Nov. 14 Paris concert, slated to be shown by HBO, will now play the show, U2: iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE LIVE IN PARIS, on Dec. 7.

Natalie Wood memorabilia

Several items that belonged to Natalie Wood will go on on sale this week as part of cabler TCM's annual Treasures from the Dream Factory auction, including her International Stardom Golden Globe, a bound screenplay of Miracle on 34th Street, and a group of 1960s wardrobe test photos, says People. The items have been in storage since Wood's death on Nov. 29, 1981, and were released by her widower, Robert Wagner.

tirdad@phillynews.com

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