I saw David Lynch's Inland Empire at the AFI Festival in Los Angeles last month and I haven't been able to shake it since. Rare is the filmmaker who can truly attest to making art, especially in a medium wherein success is achieved by conforming to specific criteria. But forty minutes deep into Lynch's latest masterpiece, I completely forgot about any criteria; for the first time in ages, I felt wholly vulnerable and scared at the movies.

It would be enough to call this film a triumph based on the sublime content, yet what's most fascinating to us at The Daily Reel is its maverick advancement in form. Lynch, a longtime film purist, used consumer-grade digital video camcorders to shoot the project, and is ambitiously circumventing the studio distribution process by self-distributing directly to theatrical outlets.

Inland Empire has been gestating in my system for a while now, and it continues to reveal itself as Lynch's grandest and most challenging work. But even with all this praise, I still don't know if I liked it, nor do I have immediate plans to sit through it again. However, viewing this teaser -- both a comprehensive and limiting view of the film -- helps to remind me that it is the most unique moviegoing experience I've had this year, and possibly ever.

Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the dudes behind Shaun of the Dead, finally stop teasing us and release a full trailer for Hot Fuzz, which promises to do for buddy cop movies what Shaun did for zombies (specifically, whack them in the head with a cricket bat).

In the film, badass supercop Pegg is set loose in a quiet English village with a strangely high "accident" rate, and uses a lot of semi-automatic weapons (plus a dim-bulb partner, played by Shaun co-star Nick Frost) to solve the mystery. How exactly semi-automatic weapons will help stop a serial killer remains to be seen, and it's a bit hard to buy Pegg as legitimately hardcore. But the genius of Shaun of the Dead was that instead of just parodying zombie films, it managed to poke gentle fun at the genre while still making a legitimately scary horror flick. The buddy cop movie isn't quite as due this mockery, but Pegg and Wright seem to know what's important about it -- lots of car chases and explosions. Oh, and guns. Lots and lots of guns.

So as long as they can keep the adrenaline pumping and the comedy flying, Hot Fuzz shouldn't find it too hard to kick some March box office ass.

Joe Carnahan's name has been floating around many projects since his gritty cop drama, NARC, hit in 2002. He was the second name attached to Mission Impossible 3 after David Fincher dropped out, but then eventually dropped out himself due to creative differences (read: Tom Cruise is mentally ill).

But it seems that he's taken a cue from his predecessor on that project, Fincher, and made the flashy, large-casted comedy/thriller/crime flick, SMOKIN' ACES which comes out January 26, 07. The cast is a tad B, with actors such as Ben Affleck and Ryan Reynolds headlining, but there are enough intriguing names, like Jason Bateman, Jeremy Piven, Ray Liotta and Common & Alicia Keys in their debuts to make things interesting.

The real star here though is the style. Carnahan appears to be putting the camera in impossible places, and moving this fun story at a break-neck pace. This doesn't look like your typical January fare, notoriously a dumping ground for studio crap.

This trailer made my ADD feel like ADHD. Can't wait.

Where has David Fincher been? It's been 4 years now since Panic Room, his shamelessly hollow follow-up to Fight Club, hit theaters. We've missed his impossible camera tricks and superb pacing at the cinema.

Luckily he seems to be back in his niche with his second riff on the serial killer flick with Zodiac, which after several delays should be arriving March 2. But do not mistake this for 8ight. This trailer pops with 70s era style and manic energy coming particularly alive at the end to the sounds of Rod Stewart's "(I Know) I'm Losing You." It promises not only to be an eerie whodunit, but also an engrossing true story filled with humor and pathos. And worry not, in my interning days I read the 170+ page script and it's top-shelf material.

This is one of the best trailers of the year.

What Thanksgiving would be complete without the official kickoff to It's A Wonderful Life season -- those 30-something days between now and Christmas when the movie airs on every station, ad nauseum, until you can barely stand go another day without jumping off a bridge of your own.

Just kidding. This is one of our all-time favorites, and the trailer still makes us well up a little bit.