WASHINGTON — In the movies, a president confronted with a massive oil spill would dispense with politics, go after his own crooked industry contributors for paying off regulators and ban future offshore drilling, cost be damned. He might even fly down to personally shut off the leak.

It’s a lot easier to be a movie president, of course, at least if you are the hero of the piece. No matter what the crisis, no matter what the odds, you can be reasonably sure you will dispatch the biggest threat confronting the nation, and within two hours. No cloture vote needed.

This is the weekend when Hollywood and Washington come together for the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, a once-journalistic event now transformed into a red-carpet celebrity affair where the visiting actors gawk at the politicians and the pols gawk right back. Let’s face it, Hollywood and Washington have been infatuated with each other for a long time, a mutual crush that has peaked again now that the largely liberal entertainment industry has a new favorite in the Oval Office.

“We’re each natural groupies of the other,” said Dan Glickman, a former Democratic congressman and later chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America. Indeed, one Hollywood actor, Kal Penn, put aside his career for a while to take a minor role in President Obama’s White House. And on Saturday night’s guest list were several other presidents, including Michael Douglas (“The American President”), Morgan Freeman ( “Deep Impact” ) and Jack Nicholson ( “Mars Attacks!” ).