JOE QUEENAN: Because he started out as an actor, and very quickly became an actor that a large segment of the population positively adored, in the same way that they adored Jimmy Cagney and Cary Grant and both Hepburns, Eastwood has long benefited from a personal relationship with the American people that no other living director can even dream of. (In my lifetime, only Alfred Hitchcock, who came into everyone’s living room once a week to deliver his weird, deadpan introductions to his creepy TV series, has enjoyed this sort of ongoing, intimate rapport with the American people. But little boys didn’t want to grow up to look like the puffy director. And very few women would have asked Hitchcock to play Misty for them.) Eastwood’s close relationship with his countrymen is the sort of thing that Michael Jordan, Joe DiMaggio, Marilyn Monroe and Babe Ruth all experienced. At a certain point, he, like Elvis Presley, crossed over into a land beyond reproach, where no blemish would ever go on his personal record, no matter how many Sondra Locke movies he made. It was OK to dislike this or that Eastwood movie – Pink Cadillac, Tightrope, The Gauntlet – as long as you did not dislike the man himself. Even women who did not like Eastwood expected their men to. The American people might forgive you for being a communist or an atheist. But they would never forgive you for saying you did not like Clint Eastwood. MORE

RELATED: Ever wonder what Leonardo DiCaprio looks like in a dress? We may find out, because he’s set to star in a Clint Eastwood-directed biopic about J. Edgar Hoover, the late FBI director who was rumored to have had a particular fondness for women’s clothing… “We all have these assumptions about Hoover,” says Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the Hoover movie. “Was he this or was he that? Was he a cross-dresser? Was he gay?  “Was he as villainous as we all think he might have been? Was there ever any light to him?” MORE

RELATED: Hoover was reluctant to take on organized crime, perhaps, it was once supposed, because the Mafia had something on him, something with which he was blackmailed into silence and inaction. “No evidence for this has ever been discovered,” Geary says. Hoover never married, lived with his mother until her death, and made a life-long intimate of his bachelor assistant, Clyde Tolson, even going on vacation together. The other canard Geary addresses is the allegation that Hoover was a cross-dresser or transvestite, if not homosexual as well, according to a story about his supposed appearance in dress and wig, requesting to be called “Mary,” at a private party in New York’s Plaza Hotel. But for Geary, the story is without merit. “Told by a single unreliable witness, it seemed, to many, out of character for the obsessively secretive Hoover.” More likely, Hoover simply suppressed his sexuality: “as an authoritarian personality, he was fearful of his own sexuality and would actively suppress any such desires.” MORE

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EW: It’s a grand day for indie rock, as Vampire Weekend have just debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. Go ahead and hoist a refreshing glass of horchata in their honor. The preppy foursome sold 124,000 copies of their sophomore album Contra, according to Nielsen SoundScan — a nice number that, combined with weak retail competition, was enough to make them the biggest band in the nation for at least one week. Considering that the No. 1 spot generally belongs to major-label acts like Ke$ha and Susan Boyle, it’s impressive to see a scrappy young indie group pull this off. (Contra came out on XL Recordings.) In fact, this is only the 12th time an independent release has topped Billboard’s flagship chart since the SoundScan era began in 1991. MORE

NASTY LITTLE MAN: Plastic Beach the new album from Gorillaz, will be released by Virgin on 9 March, 2010.  The album is preceded by first single Stylo (featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack) which will receive its radio broadcast premiere tonight and will be available for download January 26. Five years on from the release of Demon Days, Murdoc and co. return with Plastic Beach. The band have taken up residence, recording on a secret floating island deep in the South Pacific, a Plastic Beach HQ, made up of the detritus, debris and washed up remnants of humanity. This Plastic Beach is the furthest point from any landmass on Earth; the most deserted spot on the planet.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.