POST-SCREENING Q&As are usually messy affairs, where every halfway-insightful question is matched by several idiotic queries, or worse, a rambling dissertation that lasts slightly longer than The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Somewhere out there, a mathematician has devised one of those dense Good Will Hunting genius equations proving that the bigger the name, the more inane these comments will be. And what, pray tell, can draw the big film names to the Bay Area like virtually nothing else? A big film festival opening-night screening and party.

You can always be sure that whenever filmmakers take the stage at the Castro Theatre to kick off the San Francisco International Film Festival, tensions run high because there's bound to be at least one doozy eliciting an audience-wide groan. Sure enough, when the very special guests of Coffee and Cigarettes, the inaugural selection for the festival's 47th edition – a hipster holy trinity of director Jim Jarmusch, local musical eccentric Tom Waits, and the Wu Tang Clan's RZA – ambled up to the podium and began fielding slow 'n' low pitches from the audience (Why do you like cinematographer Robbie Mueller so much? Who are the White Stripes?), we all waited for the true-blue clunker. Finally, we got what we wanted: "Do you think there's a symbiosis between film and physics?" Jarmusch paused, then deadpanned, "Oh, absolutely." Waits and the RZA nodded solemnly. Everyone in the auditorium exhaled. The SFIFF had officially begun.

Lest one think film festivals are only about watching movies, Script Doctor feels compelled to remind readers that they're also about celebrity-spotting and drinking for free. So, out of a sense of journalistic obligation, we sauntered over to the Galleria, where the opening-night party was in full swing. Inside, the building's three floors were filled with folks crowding around the open bar and front-stage area, especially when a troupe of old-school fan dancers began to resurrect the ancient art of burlesque. One seminude performer did a mock-drunk stumble around the stage that ended with her topless and being dragged "unconscious" into the wings; meanwhile, to my left, life imitated art as a sodden gentleman praised Pasolini's "jejune period," then nearly passed out. In tribute to his cinephilia, I ordered another drink.

Quickly realizing that all the usual famous faces were cunningly disguised as twentysomething festival volunteers and our mission to score celebrity sightings was unsuccessful, my companions and I opted to grab a quick smoke near the second-story VIP lounge exit. No sooner had we slipped past the stairway's door than we ran into Jarmusch, sneaking a cigarette next to the security guards. "Ah, you guys can't smoke here," the burly guard said to us, and the filmmaker's apologetic look sustained our cool-factor cravings all the way to our cab. We didn't even get a chance to ask him our follow-up Q&A question regarding science's tenuous connection to celluloid stock and the Tesla coil. Maybe next year's opening night.

Roxie Jr.

When you think of the storefront at 3125 16th St. in the Mission District, you may see the past home of a used bookstore in the late '80s or, even before that, the site of an old church. When Bill Banning, CEO of Roxie Releasing, bought the space in 1993, he initially pictured it as the company's headquarters. But he also thought it had the potential for even bigger things … namely, a second screening room.

Eleven years, countless permit issues, some serious noise-proofing, and the purchase of the world's most comfortable theater seats ("We bought these back in '94 with money we made from distributing Red Rock West," admits Rick Norris, the company's president) later, the space – known colloquially as the "Little Roxie" – is ready to open its doors. Plans for a grand opening and semiofficial unveiling are tentatively slated for May with a special benefit showing of the documentary This So-Called Disaster on behalf of the Magic Theatre.

"It's an ideal space for showing popular films once they've outlasted the initial run at the 'big house,' " Banning says, gesturing toward the senior Roxie Cinema. "But the idea was always to utilize this space for showing more experimental, funkier stuff. It costs about one-fifth of what it takes to run the large theater to keep this one operative, so we can afford to show something a little edgier and not worry about breaking us. I mean, we just showed Caveh Zahedi's work-in-progress film … we couldn't have done that over there, probably."

"The idea is to have something like [Berkeley's] Fine Arts Cinema back in the '60s," interjects Cynthia Walker, who's coordinating publicity. And indeed, with its old-school snack bar and Banning's plans to start rotating his collection of vintage French film posters on the wall, the notion of a shrine to the days of art houses past seems picture-perfect for the space. "You know, the Pauline Kael era, when she was helping to run it and they showed the same Japanese art film for a year!"

Banning and Norris exchange a quick look. "Well, we may program more than one film a year. But hey, we just opened it up," Banning says with a smile. "Anything is possible."