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Why do celebrities keep trying their luck in politics? It, perhaps, may be that as long as there are cameras, microphones, and eyeballs involved, celebrities will keep chasing the dream of the White House. Even someone like Frank Zappa once seriously considered running for president, hoping to shake things up with ideas like lowering taxes and sticking closely to the Constitution.

While quite a few (say Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger) have done more than just voicing their plans, but also taking public office and finishing full terms, others believed that their fame was enough to carry them all the way to the Oval Office. Has that ever been the case? Rarely.

A still from All the President’s Men | Credits: Wildwood Enterprises

Let’s look into some of the most memorable celebrity presidential bids, their platforms, promises, and, often, their pitfalls.

Ronald Reagan

Celebrity bids for the presidency prove that in America,...

On Dec. 22, 1999, Warner Bros. released the Oliver Stone-directed NFL drama Any Given Sunday in theaters, where it went on to cross the $100 million mark globally. The Hollywood Reporter’s original review is below:

Oliver Stone is one of the movies’ foremost portrayers of warfare, so it’s only logical he should turn his attention to those gladiators of sports, professional football players. Any Given Sunday is the result, a film loaded with cynicism and choking on overbearing imagery that nevertheless winds up buying into many of the myths surrounding the sport. Of two minds about nearly every issue the film tackles anyway, Stone further lets his point of view get smothered in high-impact action and turbocharged editing.

Jocks and sports-minded guys appear the most logical audience for Any Given Sunday, but even they can’t be blamed for recoiling from the visual assault. Starring Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz and...

There is a great deal more hagiography than history in “Reagan,” a worshipful biopic of the 40th U.S. President that often plays like the cinematic equivalent of CliffsNotes, or one of those compact paperback biographies of notable figures that are designed to be consumed in an hour or less.

Director Sean McNamara (“Soul Surfer”), working from a by-the-numbers screenplay by Howard A. Klausner (based on Paul Kengor’s book “The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism”), is nothing if not brisk in his recounting of highpoints in the life of an iconic figure who, for better or worse, loomed large and exerted influence on the world stage throughout the final quarter of the 20th century and beyond.

Indeed, McNamara’s movie is so streamlined that, if you knew nothing about Reagan’s Hollywood heyday before he entered politics, you might wonder why he has a poster for...

Clockwise from bottom left: Burt Reynolds in The Longest Yard (Paramount Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images), Sylvester Stallone and Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday (Getty Images), Sean Astin in Rudy (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images), Billy Bob Thornton and Garrett Hedlund in Friday Night Lights (Universal Pictures)Graphic: The A.

Taking the inspirational sports movie template, then infusing it with so much weed and foul language that it deserves its own MPAA rating, The Underdoggs is a good example of what happens when Snoop Dogg steps into an otherwise familiar tween-age comedy to wreak havoc. The results, perhaps suprisingly, are far from disastrous and ultimately quite endearing, though parents should be forewarned of a movie that drops more f- and b-bombs than all the ordnance released during World War II.

Inspired by the West coast rapper’s eponymous football league, which has provided a valuable community service to his native L.A. for nearly two decades, this fun and dirty Amazon release has the D-o-double-g playing himself alongside a bunch of adorable pre-teens who are just as snarky and crude. It’s something like the original Bad News Bears meets Rodney Dangerfield’s Ladybugs remixed by Dr. Dre, which could...

Athletes are increasingly leveraging their fame to pursue opportunities in the entertainment industry, following the footsteps of actors like Jason Statham. Movies and media play a significant role in shaping the perception of sports, with films like Knute Rockne - All American and Olympia leaving lasting impacts on sporting culture. Sports teams often borrow branding techniques from movies, such as using actor faces in logos, to attract and engage fans. The Anaheim Ducks, for example, owe their success to their association with Disney's The Mighty Ducks franchise.

While we tend to think of sports as a being co-opted by those in the entertainment business, the movies have had a gargantuan impact in how we see and consume sports. Lionel Messi’s deal with Major League Soccer’s Inter Miami more closely resembles an actor’s contract with a studio than a traditional sports signing, the Argentine soccer star earning a...

Performing his best blend of Knute Rockne and William Wallace, prolific Welsh actor and BBC stalwart Michael Sheen launched into a locker-room speech for the ages Thursday night on the UK’s Sky network.

Tasked by the host of the sports comedy show “A League of Their Own” with pumping up the Wales national soccer team ahead of November’s World Cup, Sheen wasn’t addressing the Gareth Bale-led squad to their faces.

But he might as well have been.

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Why J.R.R. Tolkien Is Really Turning in His Grave – Over the Racist Backlash to ‘The Rings of Power’

“I have to get in the right head space now,” Sheen said before launching into the rousing speech. “Ok.”

Sheen, spreading his arms with his palms open and fingers spread, then delivers a monologue to end all monologues, which you can watch and read below.

Volume up and watch this.

Tonie Marshall, the French-born actress and filmmaker who wrote, directed and produced the 1999 romantic dramedy Venus Beauty, died Thursday after a long illness, her agent said. She was 68.

Her parents were French actress Micheline Presle (Devil in the Flesh) and American actor-director William Marshall (Knute Rockne All American, The Phantom Planet).

Born on Nov. 29, 1951, Marshall began her career in front of the camera with roles in such films as A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973), directed by Jacques Demy. She acted in more than 40 movies and TV shows during her career but made her biggest mark as a filmmaker....

Tonie Marshall, the French-born actress and filmmaker who wrote, directed and produced the 1999 romantic dramedy Venus Beauty, died Thursday after a long illness, her agent said. She was 68.

Her parents were French actress Micheline Presle (Devil in the Flesh) and American actor-director William Marshall (Knute Rockne All American, The Phantom Planet).

Born on Nov. 29, 1951, Marshall began her career in front of the camera with roles in such films as A Slightly Pregnant Man (1973), directed by Jacques Demy. She acted in more than 40 movies and TV shows during her career but made her biggest mark as a filmmaker....

Producer Wendell Niles Jr. died Jan. 2 in Los Angeles after a battle with Parkinson's disease, his wife said. He was 88.

Born in Seattle on Dec. 8, 1930, Niles and his family moved to the Toluca Lake neighborhood of L.A. in the late 1930s when his bandleader father took a job on George Burns and Gracie Allen's radio show.

(Wendell Niles Sr. went onto to become one of the biggest radio announcers of his day and appeared as himself in such films as 1940's Knute Rockne, All American and the 1956 Martin & Lewis comedy ...

Producer Wendell Niles Jr. died Jan. 2 in Los Angeles after a battle with Parkinson's disease, his wife said. He was 88.

Born in Seattle on Dec. 8, 1930, Niles and his family moved to the Toluca Lake neighborhood of L.A. in the late 1930s when his bandleader father took a job on George Burns and Gracie Allen's radio show.

(Wendell Niles Sr. went onto to become one of the biggest radio announcers of his day and appeared as himself in such films as 1940's Knute Rockne, All American and the 1956 Martin & Lewis comedy ...

The Super Bowl closes out an exciting season of NFL football this Sunday with a strong match-up between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots. So for fans to bide their time in the many months before another kick-off, it’s time to turn your attentions to the greatest football films of all time. There are all kinds of football-based films out there to enjoy — from dramas to comedies, and even an award-winning documentary — and we’ve collected the top 12 here in our photo gallery, ranked from worst to best.

In paring down the list, we had to answer the question: “Just what is a football movie?” We didn’t include “The Blind Side,” for example, because though its central character plays football, the film is primarily about many other things. And while Act 3 of Robert Altman‘s “M*A*S*H” is made up of what is arguably the...

Over the last few decades – thanks in part to movies and TV shows like Dazed and Confused, Boogie Nights, Anchorman and HBO's Vinyl – there’s been a pronounced pop cultural tendency to reduce the 1970s to little more than a fabulous parade of campy signifiers like mirrored disco balls, brightly-painted muscle cars, platform shoes, bellbottomed jeans, tube tops, Afro hairdos, pornstaches and piles of cocaine.

It's an understandable impulse, of course. (Who doesn't love Afros or piles of cocaine?) But taking such a superficial approach to the seventies means glossing over the grittier,...

The stylistics of documentary filmmaking helped wipe out the old Hollywood way of doing things, and this sharp look at Olympic skiing is a prime example. Michael Ritchie became a director to be watched filming a killer competitor (Robert Redford), a blaze on the ski slopes and an Sob in every other aspect of his life. The style still looks fresh, 36 years later. Downhill Racer Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 494 1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 101 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 1, 2015 / 39.95 Starring Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, Camilla Sparv, Dabney Coleman, Karl Michael Vogler, Jim McMullan, Kathleen Crowley, Carole Carle. Cinematography Brian Probyn Film Editor Richard A. Harris Original Music Kenyon Hopkins Written by James Salter from a book by Oakley Hall Produced by Richard Gregson Directed by Michael Ritchie

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

In the late 1960s, when the standard Hollywood way of making movies began to fall apart,...

Well, the temps are dropping, and the leaves are changing. That can only mean one thing: better check on furnace. Or get the old rake out. Of course, that’s unless you’re a sports fan. Then, for the most part, it’s football all the time (just seems like it to the rest of us). And what better way to lure those fans away from their TVs and bars? Why Hollywood has been passing the ole’ pigskin for decades, even before sound (Harold Lloyd in The Freshman has quite a spectacular final game). There are comedies and dramas, the latter has mostly been the province of the true story. Jim Thorpe, All American (as was coach Knute Rockne) and Invincible to name a few. And, of course, there’s that much beloved crowd-pleaser Rudy. Well, all you gridiron movie lovers, here’s a new flick from the same fellow that penned that underdog story.

Matthew McConaughey is the one man who can change Texas' early season woes ... so says Espn host Chris Fowler who tells TMZ Sports Matt's Knute Rockne antics could save the Longhorns.Chris was in Nashville when our camera guy asked what he thought about the Oscar winning actor digging into his "Wolf of Wall Street" bag of tricks to hype up the Ut football team at a recent practice.Peep the clip -- Fowler, who's...

Sure, Ronald Reagan gave lots of frothy performances in many B movies, but he also earned critical acclaim for roles in "Dark Victory" (1939), "Knute Rockne, All American" (1940), "Desperate Journey" (1942), "Storm Warning" (1951) and "King's Row." Clearly, he was widely respected by his peers -- they elected him president of the Screen Actors Guild -- but was he ever nominated for an Oscar? That's one of the five questions in our latest Academy Awards quiz. Earn 100 points for every correct answer and compete to rise to the top of our contest leader board. "Emmy24" holds the perch position right now, but he's vulnerable. Earn additional points by taking our previous quizzes - click these links: Quiz 1: Who has won the most Oscars for acting (four)? Quiz 2: Who was pregnant when she accepted her Oscar? Quiz 3: Who won Best Actress Oscar for her film debut? Quiz 4: Who never won an Emmy?...

Spielberg's Lincoln biopic and Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty may have been held back until after the votes are counted, but do Us voters ever allow themselves to be swayed by what they see at the cinema?

Two movies scheduled for release in the Us on 26 December – a traditional slot for hot Oscar contenders – may make poignant viewing for the political classes. They are Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatisation of the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden, and Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, a biopic of the 16th president.

If, during that holiday season, Barack Obama is preparing to begin his second term, the films will make pleasant chat at inauguration parties and help to burnish his legend. The Obama administration co-operated with Bigelow in the making of her film – there are allegations that the Pentagon released classified material to the director – while Spielberg, an Obama supporter,...

This past February, Undefeated took home the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. The film tells the story of a feisty, focused coach determined to end the losing streak of a football team from a school that’s seen better days. The prime example of this plot would go all the way back to 1940 with Knute Rockne, All American and continue through to the more recent Remember The Titans and We Are Marshall. So it might be more than a bit familiar. And the documentary techniques are not ground-breaking. We’re basically a fly on the wall observing the start of the new season. But what observations! There’s just as much drama and suspense here as in any big Hollywood ” based on true events” flick. You don’t have to be a pigskin fanatic to be enthralled with these people. Perhaps you may identify with one or two of the principals...

Reuters Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco June 6, 2011.

“Oh wow.” Two words that can have many meanings.

Steve Jobs’s sister Mona Simpson has a moving tribute in the New York Times detailing some of his final moments and his last words.

According to the article, titled “A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs,” Jobs’s last words were “Oh Wow. Oh Wow. Oh Wow.” (The words were rendered in...

Ronald Reagan, Knute Rockne: All American Kay Francis, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Jean Harlow: Packard Campus Movies Thursday, September 1 (7:30 p.m.) The Wanderers (Orion, 1979) Set against the urban jungle of 1963 New York's gangland subculture, this coming of age teenage movie is set around the Italian gang the Wanderers. Directed by Philip Kaufman. With Ken Wahl, John Friedrich and Karen Allen. Action drama. Rated R. Color, 117 min. Thursday, September 8 (7:30 p.m.) Mildred Pierce (Warner Bros., 1945) A housewife-turned-waitress finds success in business but loses control of her ungrateful teenaged daughter. Directed by Michael Curtiz. With Joan Crawford, Zachary Scott and Ann Blyth. Drama. Black & White, 111 min. Selected for the National Film Registry in 1996. Friday, September 9 (7:30 p.m.) Pre-code Drama Double Feature Jewel Robbery (Warner Bros., 1932) A wealthy, married woman becomes captivated by a debonair jewel thief. Directed by William Dieterle. With Kay Francis and William Powell. Comedy,...

In honor of the 83rd Academy Awards, Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list.

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." — Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara

The Godfather (1972)

"I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." — Marlon Brando as Don Corleone...

A Season of "Friday Night Lights" is a lot like any good song. It has to completely break it down before they can build it back up again. So if you've gotten used to the soul-validating optimism of the last five episodes, we're very sorry about the crushing sorrow you're likely to now endure in the run up to the series finale. It's only fitting.

Texans sure do love their church. And as much as it goes against everything we know about organized religion, all of the people of Dillon seem to belong to the same congregation. Unlikely, but it does allow for some post-service crossover.

Luke's (Matt Lauria) playing off the praise of his evil farmer parents, who like the family of most corn-fed American males, can overlook the whole teenage abortion thing as soon as a football scholarship enters the equation.

Eric's (Kyle Chandler) on the cover of...

"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." --Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara.

The Godfather (1972)

"I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse." --Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.

On the Waterfront (1954)

"You don't understand!

"Extra" brings you AFI's 100 Best Movie Quotes of all time! From "The Wizard of Oz" to "Taxi Driver," see if your favorites made the list!

AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie QuotesGone with the Wind (1939)

“Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” —Said by Clark Gable as Rhett Butler to Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara.

The Godfather (1972)

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” —Marlon Brando as Don Corleone.

On the Waterfront (1954)

“You don’t understand!