So Terry Gilliam is panhandling in winking fashion in New York City in an effort to promote his latest film, Tideland, and now comes word that adjective-spawning auteur David Lynch is distributing Inland Empire himself in the United States and Canada after a potential agreement with Magnolia  Pictures fell through. After its bow at the Venice Film Festival last month and Stateside premiere at the New York Film Festival, West Coasters will finally get a chance to check out the movie, starring Laura Dern, at the upcoming AFI FEST 2006, where the long-ago AFI grad’s typically abstruse mystery screens as a centerpiece gala. Now if only we could get Werner Herzog and Robert Altman on board with such shenanigans, we’d have a have a veritable Fantastic Four of cinematic maverick-dom set to unleash havoc on… well, arthouses across America. And yes, I suppose Paul Thomas Anderson could still lurk just over Altman’s shoulder if necessary.