At the dawn of the third decade of the 21st Century, I for one am ready to anoint Cartoon Saloon the finest animation studio in the world outside of Japan. The studio’s wonderful first three features – 2009’s The Secret of Kells, 2014’s Song of the Sea, 2017’s The Breadwinner – might have been enough […]

I think it is time to draw Cartoon Saloon into the company of the great animation studios of the modern day. It’s not just that with The Breadwinner, a sober-minded tale of the life of a girl in Afghanistan during the height of Taliban control, makes it three-for-three good or great features from Cartoon Saloon, […]

To begin by asking the least burning question of them all: is Song of the Sea better than The Secret of Kells? I’m inclined to say no. There’s the ol’ “form follows content” argument, which would have it that Kells uses a visual aesthetic that is intimately derived from its primary subject, the illuminated Book […]

One of the biggest surprises in recent Oscar history was surely the elevation of an unknown French-Belgian-Irish co-production, made by the little-known Irish studio Cartoon Saloon, into the ranks of Best Animated Feature nominees this past spring; thank God for it, too, because without being able to splash “Oscar Nominee!” across the posters, I doubt […]