Michael Saltis

Portfolio

Chesterton Academy of Akron •

Chesterton Academy of Akron

We at the Chesterton Academy of Akron are filled with an ardent desire to make God known, loved, and served. In this zeal we are partnering with the Chesterton Schools Network to bring their rigorous, integrated curriculum to Akron and to pair it with faithful, passionate, Catholic teachers in order to foster a culture of love of and delight in what is True, Good, and Beautiful.

Using a classical model of education our students will work with original texts to engage with fundamental ideas of leadership, virtue, and holiness.
Catholic Business Journal •

CATHOLIC BUSINESS PROFILE: Young Catholic Professional Jeremy Vinluan inspires others in ways you’d never imagine in this tech-heavy era

Photo: Jeremy G. Vinluan with Bishop Nelson Perez of the Diocese of Cleveland at a Theology on Tap event in West Cleveland.

In an age of enlightened tech communications, when is the last time you received a handwritten letter? For younger readers, the likely answer to that question is “Never.” But what if you were to open your mailbox this morning to find, hidden among the many advertisements and bills, a lone envelope containing a much-needed message of encouragement hand-addressed to you pers
Voyage Comics •

Venom: The fallen-away Catholic who gets possessed by evil

When I was growing up in the early 1990s, American television was going through an animation renaissance. From the art deco-influenced to Disney’s gothic and Marvel’s dazzling , the cartoons of the 90s managed to be both wildly entertaining and thematically deep. Unlike the Hanna-Barbera cartoons of yesteryear (delightful though they were), this new batch of animated series were delved eagerly into surprisingly mature themes in the midst of what was otherwise kid-friendly storytelling. One such
Voyage Comics •

Sin and salvation in Netflix’s 'Stranger Things'

This post contains spoilers for seasons 1-3 of Netflix’s Stranger Things . While full of empowering messages for both families and young people, the series is not suitable for all ages, and contains language, violence, and some sexuality. For more detailed information, read the series

As film studios continue to withdraw their most popular properties from the old guard of digital streaming services (in favor of replacing them on their own platforms, like Disney+), and as our streaming options c
Voyage Comics •

'Godzilla: King of the Monsters' - Michael Dougherty’s love letter to the Kaiju genre

Even the most casual moviegoer can detect very early on in Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters that this is a very different beast from its grim predecessor, 2014’s Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards. Edwards famously — or infamously — favored a gritty, somber tone and sought to portray the titular king of the kaiju (Japanese for “monster” or “strange beast”) in as realistic a light as possible, teasing the audience by hiding Godzilla more often than not, which pleased some movi
Voyage Comics •

Remembering Netflix’s very Catholic ‘Daredevil': A man without fear, but not without faith

Let’s be honest for a second: For some of us who have kept up with the genre since Iron Man and The Dark Knight changed the game a decade ago, superhero movies sometimes feel like they’re getting a little old.

There are a variety of reasons for this encroaching fatigue (which, it must be noted, has yet to manifest itself in the form of lower box office revenues), but the ubiquitous Marvel Studios storytelling formula is a key suspect. To quote director James Cameron in his docuseries AMC Vision
Voyage Comics •

The real villain is the devil in 'Godzilla: King of the Monsters'

Images from the most recent trailers for Godzilla: King of the Monsters seem to suggest that director Michael Dougherty has more on his mind than giant monsters.

shows the film’s main antagonist, the three-headed King Ghidorah, perched upon a volcano, his enormous bat-like wings spread wide and the mountain beneath his colossal feet spewing magma and sulfur as lightning erupts ominously all around him. So far, this is par for the course in the Godzilla franchise, for which Ghidorah has

But it
Voyage Comics •

‘Hellboy’ will spend some time in Purgatory after mediocre reboot

Dripping with unnecessary gore and bereft of cigars and Catholic themes, Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is unlikely to hit home either with Chestertonians or devotees of the original franchise. But while it may be a demonic disappointment, some fans will be happy to know that guilty pleasures such as this can still be made in the “Age of Marvel.”

Back in 2015, when actor Ron Perlman — aka the original Hellboy — was still actively campaigning to attract studio money to finish Guillermo Del Toro’s much-
Voyage Comics •

Hellboy, true manhood and the power of the Rosary

*Author’s Note: This is a retrospective post on Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy (2004). It is not to be confused with Neil Marshall’s upcoming reboot of the same name.

About a year ago, I attended a talk in Cleveland by the famous Canadian clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, who was there to speak about his bestselling book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos . His lengthy, engaging lectures about religion, hierarchy, and the western Judeo-Christian patrimony are so popular that he h
Catholic Business Journal •

Interview with Michael Walsh on The Fiery Angel and the link between cultural and political crisis in the West

Michael Saltis with the Catholic Business Journal, caught up with author Michael Walsh by phone regarding Walsh’s compelling book, The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics and the Struggle for the Soul of the West.

As a journalist, author and screenwriter whose works include six novels, seven works of nonfiction, and the hit Disney movie “Cadet Kelly,” Mr. Walsh delivered an exceptional interview.

Walsh is also the former classical music critic for Time Magazine, and he regularly contribut
Voyage Comics •

Slaying Dragons: Seven Films for Heroic Hearts

One of my coming-of-age moments as a young reader was when my father introduced me to the Old English poem Beowulf. A true classic, the story should already be familiar to anyone with any interest in poetry, the fantasy genre, or “heroes of old.” One of the most significant works of Old English literature, its anonymous author relates a tale of the feats of the heroic Beowulf, who, having sailed across the seas from his native Geatland, must defend a Scandinavian kingdom besieged by two monsters
Voyage Comics •

Alita: Battle Angel — Identity, Mission, and the False Promises of Sin

Whenever Hollywood sets out to adapt a Japanese anime or manga, fans of the original material tend to get anxious. To understand why, look no further than the live-action adaptations Dragonball: Evolution (2009), Death Note (2017), or Ghost in the Shell (2017), none of which can match their Japanese counterparts in terms of worldbuilding or character development, and each of which was ultimately rejected by devotees of their source material. It was with this precedent in mind that fans reacted w
Voyage Comics •

M. Night Shyamalan's 'Glass': Monsters, Martyrdom, and the Triumph of the Supernatural

When I was a much younger moviegoer, one of my cinematic coming-of-age moments was seeing , the alien invasion thriller directed by M. Night Shyamalan. I was twelve years old, and at that point in my life it was easily the most frightening film I’d ever experienced. Especially on a big screen in the company of my friends, the experience was terrifying but also hugely entertaining, owing largely to the well-written, likeable characters and the film’s underlying theme of faith enduring through unf
Voyage Comics •

Living Water: The Christology of DC's "Aquaman"

Among the many traditions of Christmastide in 21 Century America, few are as enjoyable as the annual Twitter slugfest over a certain action movie’s status as a member of the season’s cinematic canon. I speak, of course, of John McTiernan’s 1988 classic Die Hard.

That a vociferous dispute over a Bruce Willis actioner’s right to call itself a Christmas movie should attract so many combatants is usually dismissed as a quirk of American movie fandom. But I suspect something deeper is at work: A hun
Catholic Business Journal •

Michael’s Picks: 13 Halloween Movie Night Chillers

01. The Mummy (1999) Let’s start with one you won’t find on many Halloween lists. I’m a sucker for Boris Karloff, but the 1932 film has nothing on Stephen Sommers’ late 90’s rollercoaster ride. The plot is simple: A buried treasure is found, an ancient curse is unleashed, and an undead Egyptian mummy wreaks havoc as our heroes flee his ghoulish hordes. Each and every actor is perfect in their respective role – from Brendan Fraser’s charismatic leading man, to Arnold Vosloo’s Imhotep, right down
Catholic Business Journal •

MOVIE REVIEW: Venom

“Maybe it’s a breakup. A death. An accident. Whatever it is, you used to be one thing. Now, you’re something else. We all have our own problems. Our own issues. Our own… demons.”

Sony’s Marvel-linked “villain universe” is off to an auspicious start. With massive box-office sales set to pass those of both 20th Century Fox’s acclaimed Logan and Warner Brothers’ superhero team-up Justice League, the news couldn’t be better for Venom. Still more surprising is the fact that the film – directed by Zo
Catholic Business Journal •

MOVIE REVIEW: Death Wish

Bruce Willis isn’t back, but at least he’s trying. Alas, the same cannot be said for director Eli Roth.

When Scott Free Studios and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave Death Wish the green light, studio heads could never have known that it would arrive at a particularly sensitive political moment in America’s national conversation. Originally scheduled to drop in November 2017 before being pushed back to March 2018, the film has been released smack in the middle of the post-Parkland gun control debate, a
Catholic Business Journal •

MOVIE REVIEW: Black Panther

With a global box office draw topping an estimated $700 million at the time of this writing, Black Panther is the rare superhero movie that bursts the banks of its genre to become an undisputed cultural phenomenon.

Directed by Ryan Coogler (Creed, Fruitvale Station) and produced under the juggernaut brand of Marvel Studios, the film has racked up an impressive number of records in the weeks since its release. To date, it has claimed the title of highest-rated superhero film of all time by profe
ChurchPOP •

9 Awesome Christian Art Pieces on DeviantArt

As the paintings, sculptures, and architecture of Rome and Medieval Europe attest, art has always been considered of vital importance to Christian civilization.

In his 1999 Letter To Artists, Saint John Paul II wrote the following:

Society needs artists, just as it needs scientists, technicians, workers, professional people, witnesses of the faith, teachers, fathers and mothers, who ensure the growth of the person and the development of the community by means of that supreme art form which is
Load More