"Engaging Film Criticism" examines recent American cinema in relationship to its -imaginative intertexts-, films from earlier decades that engage similar political and cultural themes. This historical encounter provides an unexpected and exciting way of reading popular contemporary films. Eclectic pairings include the Schwarzenegger action film "True Lies" with the Hitchcock classic "North by Northwest," as well as the lampooned Will Smith comedy "Wild, Wild West" with Buster Keaton's silent feature "The General." Using a theoretically and historically informed brand of criticism, "Engaging Film Criticism" suggests that today's Hollywood cinema is every bit as worthy of study as the classics."