Touches You

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

This short was nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short, losing to The Danish Poet. There will be spoilers ahead: This short is visually rather nice and there are a few funny gags. A lot of its potential is blunted, however, toward the middle, when some of the jumps are really too short to be more than a blur. It's probably a good idea to watch this more than once in order to catch some of the gags.Scrat is carrying a nut when he sees a glow, digs and comes up with a gadget. Look very closely in here for a very quick, throwaway sight gag which explains the presence of the device instantly with a rather sick (and funny) joke.Never having learned the truism, "If you don't know what it is, leave it alone", Scrat starts messing with it, it flashes and his nut disappears. Scrat freaks, attacks the device and off we go. It's a time machine.The first for jumps are a bit longer and more satisfying bits. They'll all be recognizable bits, all well developed and most enjoyable. I won't spoil them here. The short gets a bit frenetic here, with the jumps short and almost too chaotic to really take in easily. There's a nice bit dealing with time itself, which has its painful side for Scrat.The last bit has Scrat creating his own problems and the ending is perfect, with several mood shifts in the last few seconds.This short is available as an extra on various releases of Ice Age: The Meltdown and is well worth seeing. Most recommended.

This short is about Scrat desperately clinging onto his nut through time travel.I am not a fan of "Ice Age", but I find "No Time for Nuts" very likable. Scrat is cute and adorable. The way he clings onto his nut just like a piece of priceless jewel is hilarious. His reactions are over the top and fun, making the short very entertaining. The pace is quick, packed with humour and action. The creative scenarios created by the time machine provide different backgrounds to his adventures; everyone of them is fun. The filmmakers must have spent a long time thinking what scenarios they could have incorporated into the short!

In 2004, Fox Studio's little film GONE NUTTY was released in the theaters with the film ICE AGE. GONE NUTTY was a cute little film starring that little mouse-like creature as he tries to fetch an acorn and it was highly original--hence an Oscar Nomination for Best Animated Short. Now, two years later, another installment of the short film was released in conjunction with ICE AGE II and once again, the short film is quite cute and funny---however, it's not exactly original--being in many ways just a continuation of GONE NUTTY. In light of this, I am very surprised that it also received an Oscar nomination--especially when Pixar's nominated film for the 2007 Oscars was so much more original (it, too, did not win--this honor went to a rather flat Norwegian film THE DANISH POET).So if you watch it, be prepared for more of the same--more laughs, more action, more excellent CG animation and more of the same plot. Very good but also not exactly new.

The makers of Ice Age seem to understand well the likability of the character of Scrat, which is why they made this short, presumably as a bonus short on the Ice Age: Meltdown DVD and as an Academy Award nominated work unto itself. In making this short, Fox Animation is taking a page from Pixar and including separate entertaining works for moviegoers in addition to the feature, which is a method I stand behind because I really enjoy short films and I really want there to be a wider recognized market for them.That said, Scrat's slapstick-style existence doesn't really get much more here than he had before. It would seem that a time-traveling Scrat would provide a lot of opportunities for some interesting situations, which I guess they do, but they're more surprising in how reserved and predictable they are than the wide range of other situations he could have gotten in. I guess it was a funny short, but it often seemed to miss some grand opportunities while searching for more obvious visual gags.I think the best part of this short entirely is Scrat's sudden acquaintance with himself. I think that one part entirely redeems this short, because it's not only really funny but has reactions that fit perfectly with Scrat's character... and what he'd think of himself. Being that Scrat never has any dialog, the mirror-like movements and the animation of his facial reactions are spot-on in interpreting both the hilarity and confusion of an already spastic character.--PolarisDiB