USA! USA!: The 42nd USA Film Festival begins its five-day run tonight at the Angelika Film Center in Dallas. Among the highlights at this year’s festival are tributes to Elliott Gould and Rob Reiner as well as scheduled appearances from a couple of cast members from The Office. SMU grad Brian Baumgartner will represent The Last Push on Friday while Jenna Fischer will support The Giant Mechanical Man on Sunday, written and directed by her husband, Lee Kirk. One of the three opening-night films is How to Survive a Plague, about activists who have fought the AIDS epidemic. My podcasting partner spoke with its director, David France, who tells dallasnews.com, “This is also a story of triumph and ingeniousness and creativity and revolution. That story hadn’t really been told and I didn’t know why. So I thought maybe I’d try to tell it myself.” France will take part in a Q&A following tonight’s screening, for which we’ve got some passes to give away.

THE CUTTING EDGE: USA isn’t the only festival in town this weekend. Nouveau 47 Theatre will host its Second Annual New Works/New Voices Festival beginning Thursday. All of the work in this year’s festival focuses on the idea of change. Curious about what to see? Then check out the play-by-play breakdown over on theaterjones.com.

ASK ADAM: The Goss-Michael Foundation is currently hosting an exhibition of work by British artist Adam McEwen. The artist is known for a wide array of work – everything from text-based pieces to graphite sculptures. I posted a Q&A I did with McEwen after a recent press preview. And if you’d like to hear more from McEwen, check out Art This Week’s video interview with him.