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I love everything about the Oscars, from speculating who will win to commenting on what people wear to chatting about the show the next morning. When it comes to the nutritional value of movies, the Oscars are a fabulous, once-a-year indulgence in over-the-top junk food.

Advance publicity for last night’s edition promised a new look and feel to the awards and, while the program didn’t live up to all the hype, it was one of the more interesting Oscar broadcasts in recent years. While the final winners followed most of our predictions, with few surprises, the broadcast offered some gems for the Academy history books. Here are five things to love about the 2009 Oscars.

#1. The Acting Awards
The highlight of the show was the classy new way to present the acting awards. Instead of a single presenter (usually a past winner) announcing the nominees and opening the envelope, the Academy invited five past winners to the stage to pay tribute to each of the five nominees. The effect was stunning. The stage was graced by legends like Shirley MacLaine, Eva Marie Saint, Robert DeNiro who gave, for the first time, all five nominees in an acting category a special moment in the spotlight before revealing the winner. Hopefully the Academy will make this new idea an Oscar tradition.

#2. The Tacky Production Numbers
And, my, they were tacky, and fun, as if a page from Oscar’s history book had suddenly reappeared. Hugh Jackman, a Tony winner who hosted that awards show a few years ago, may have wished he was back on Broadway as he tried oh, so hard to make the frenetic opening number work. But he was dancing uphill. The number – highlighting the year’s best picture nominees – seemed to resemble the parodies that Billy Crystal used to sing to open the show. But those songs were intended to be funny and Jackman erred in playing these tunes for real. Later, a salute to musicals gave Jackman a second chance to show his song-and-dance skills only to be upstaged by a large chorus line and distracting film clips running on a rear screen. Hugh, we love you on stage, but the Oscars are a long way from Broadway.

#3. The Comic Pros
Thank goodness the Academy invited some comedians to replace the weak, scripted banter between presenters that we love to hate. Tina Fey and Steve Martin should be hired each year to set a delicious tone for the awards – as they presented the writing awards early in the show – while Seth Rogen and James Franco brought a lot of fun to their parody of the intended (and unintended) humorous moments in the year’s films – and Ben Stiller performed a wild impersonation of Joaquin Phoenix.

#4. The Family Moments
We love Oscar moments of real heart. To no one’s surprise, Heath Ledger was awarded the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and his victory provided one of the awards’ most moving tributes. When his mother, father and sister walked to the stage to accept the Oscar on behalf of Ledger’s young daughter, the awards became less about movies, and more about the fragility of life. This touching acceptance, so real, so painful, shifted from a tribute to a fine actor to the simple expression of a family who misses their son and sibling. It was rich.

#5. The Award Sequence
The Oscar show can go on and on. For the first time, the writers tried to arrange the presentation of the awards in an order to tell a story of the making of a movie. The writing awards came first, followed by the awards for when a film is shot (such as cinematography, art direction, costumes), and the awards for post production. While the subtleties of the approach may have been lost at most Oscar parties, the idea did help the Academy speed things along while honoring these very important crafts. And the show didn’t feel so long – even though it was.

Looking Ahead
Now begins the long wait for the 82nd Oscars. Over the next several months, we’ll experience many disappointments, and hopefully a few gems, as we go to the movies each week. That’s what we love about the movies. And what we love about the Oscars, too.

Every Oscar season is a moment in time when, perhaps briefly, a film achievement is considered the very best. A moment that, not surprisingly, is influenced what is going on in the world.

In 1939, when a world feared it might have to say goodbye to a way of life, the Academy honored a film about people saying goodbye to a way of life, Gone With the Wind. In 1977, when a world shocked by scandal longed for simple heroism, the Academy honored a small movie about a simple hero, Rocky. And in 1998, as the world celebrated an excess of riches, the Academy honored the most excessive film anyone could imagine, Titanic.

So it’s no surprise that, as we near Oscar night, the results will be influenced by the times we’re in. Here are my predictions.

Picture: Slumdog Millionnaire. This is the feel good film in a year when we need a feel good film. But it’s not the best. Milk is the film from 2008 that will be remembered (and revered) in the future – a brilliant portrait of man who becomes an unlikely icon for a movement. But Slumdog hit the chord.

Actor: Sean Penn, Milk. The past Oscar winner is neck-and-neck with Mickey Rourke, the year’s comeback hero. Rourke’s fine work in The Wrestler is a perfect match of performer, material and moment, but the amazing Penn subdues every familiar mannerism to inhabit the role of Harvey Milk.

Actress: Kate Winslet, The Reader. Oscar will make it up to Kate – nominated six times without a win – by awarding a relatively weak (and, actually, supporting) performance in a rather dismal film. Meryl Streep, on the other hand, has had a banner year, and is oh so deserving of Oscar #3 for Doubt.

Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight. What this amazing actor did with the comic book role of the Joker is legendary. That he did not live to see the reaction is tragic. This posthumous Oscar will pay tribute to the legend and the tragedy.

Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz, Vicky, Christina, Barcelona. The delightful Ms. Cruz is set to join the exclusive club of Dianne Weist and Mira Sorvino – actresses who win Supporting Oscars for Woody Allen films. She arrives half-way through the film with enough gusto to fill a multiplex.

Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionnaire. Boyle will repeat his win at the Directors Guild of America because his visual approach to the material is the film’s strongest element. And people love the movie. But Gus Van Sant should win for Milk. What could have been another biopic – with a few newsreel clips tossed in for authenticity – becomes a cinema time capsule of a time so recent but so long ago when fundamental freedoms were easily to overlook.

Original Screenplay: Milk. This award will ensure the film is remembered by Oscar no matter what happens in the Best Actor category. Lance Black’s thrilling screenplay is thorough without being exhausting, moving without becoming maudlin.

Adapted Screenplay: The Reader. The Academy stunned the movie world by giving this film so much attention. That momentum will carry it to this win for classy writer David Hare for a screenplay that is superior to the final film.

Film Editing: Slumdog Millionnaire. While the seamless transition between new footage and archive visuals in Milk is Oscar worthy, the popularity of Slumdog will bring it to the top.

Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir. The first animated film to be nominated in this category is sure to be honored for breaking new ground.

Wall-E: Best Animated Film, Sound Effects Editing, Original Music Score, Song. Jeers to the Academy for creating the “Animated Film” category in the first place. It now makes it too easy for a brilliant film – that could be competitive in a major category – to be marginalized in a minor one. Look, as well, for this instant classic to be recognized for its sound and music work.

Benjamin Button: Best Cinemtatography, Art Direction, Sound Recording, Visual Effects, Costume Design, Makeup. Look for this visual wonder to walk off with most of the craft Oscars. Even those who dislike the film acknowledge the technical achievement. Plus these awards will be a way for the Academy to indirectly honor director David Fincher.

The New England streets look oh, so familiar. They could be, actually, the winding lanes of any of the towns in this corner of the world. The houses boast that warm, lived-in feel of the most welcoming homes of any of our neighborhoods. And only when we peek behind closed doors do we discover people struggling to find meaning in their day-to-day routines. Not even the finest coats of paint can cover the cracks in these foundations.

On paper, Richard Yates’ novel Revolutionary Road offers a sobering account of a disillusioned middle class in 1950s Suburban Connecticut. Its exploration of post-war businessmen in grey flannel suits illuminates the frustration of a generation. They commute by train to Grand Central, find themselves distracted by daydreams, and search for fulfillment while fulfilling menial tasks. Yates’ vivid descriptions and stark dialogue create an empty world filled with people who achieve very little despite their every effort to acquire so very much.

On screen, however, the emotional intensity of the work intimidates director Sam Mendes. This reliable director, well remembered for exploring similar suburban territory in his Oscar-winning American Beauty, seems to get lost this time around. He doesn’t appear to know if he wants to make a painful family drama (think The Ice Storm) or a reflective period recreation (think Far From Heaven). His focus drifts from characters of depth to over-the-top exaggeration as he spends the film searching for a consistent approach and style. As the credits roll we aren’t sure what we just experienced perhaps because the director isn’t sure what movie he is making.

Kate Winslet’s performance illustrates the problems. On one hand, she is remarkably agile in her portrait of a frustrated wife who has no idea how to climb out of the desperation she has created. The actress is best when she doesn’t speak, when she relies on her deep eyes and expressive face to tell the story. But when she speaks – in stilted dialogue that sounds too current for the period – Winslet is as artificial as the vinyl covering her sofa. Nothing the character says advances the story the film visually tells. Likewise, Leonardo DiCaprio doesn’t seem sure how to play the bored breadwinner as the actor’s natural youth conflicts with the character’s dark shadings.

The supporting performances outshine the leads. Michael Shannon is a welcome Oscar nominee for his supporting work as a man who, despite his disturbances, has an uncanny ability to speak the truth. David Harbour should have been an Oscar contender for his painful portrayal of a neighbor and Kathy Bates delightfully chews the scenery as a busybody realtor.

Nutritional Value: Visually, the movie is lovely, but just like the lives in the story, this beauty is only skin deep. Beneath the façade is a troubling film that never fully satisfies. You will be hungry again within an hour.

Since movies began to talk there has been a love-hate relationship between Broadway and Hollywood. Many a playwright loves the rewards of selling the film rights to a play while fearing what may change. The transition from stage to screen is not as simple as turning on a camera. Creating a movie version requires rethinking the impact of one medium for the potential of another.

On stage, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt provided lasting power. Its emotional story –of the suspicions a nun has of the intentions of the Father of a parish school – is intensified by the decision by playwright John Patrick Shanley to limit its focus to the heresay between the four primary characters. By never showing what incidents may or may not actually occur, Shanley brilliantly underscores the play’s moral about the conclusions people reach when what they hear supports what they want to believe.

Unfortunately, the film version – also adapted and directed by Shanley – gives the audience too much to see. Shanley insists that we study the school, the church, where the nuns and priests reside, and the garden where every important conversation seems to occur. Everything suggested on stage is magnified on screen, leaving little to our imaginations.

Rather than focus on the four central characters, Shanley introduces irrelevant supporting players to “open up” the play. Instead of trusting us to get to know the characters through their suspicions, Shanley insists upon starting the film with unnecessary (and endless) backstory. The original writer becomes the adapter who refuses to trust the power of the material. Curiously, the work he dilutes is his own.

Regardless of the weaknesses of the film, Doubt offers Meryl Streep the chance to deliver another achievement in her gallery. Streep is so much better than the film that, halfway through, you begin to wish the others would go away and leave the screen to the master. Only Streep seems to embrace the potential power of the work, as she creates a carefully revealed performance of a woman so controlled by her perceptions and fears that she has little time to consider facts. Streep takes the character, and the audience, on an amazing journey of self awareness and admission.

Philip Seymour Hoffman gives the priest appealing warmth but fails to register the evolving anguish. Amy Adams can’t reach beyond the surface in her portrayal of a young nun who first expresses concerns about the priest. And while the lovely Viola Davis is moving as the mother of a young boy at the school, the power of this climactic sequence is undermined by Shanley’s decision to film it in yet another annoying walk through the garden.

Nutritional Value: Half the nutrition of the Broadway original because the adapter failed to trust the power of the original work.

No, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is not a warmed over leftover from the cutting room floor of Forrest Gump.

Despite sharing a screenwriter (Eric Roth), a setting in the South, a white house with a balcony, and a fascination with special effects technology, the two films could not be more different. While the Oscar-winning Gump focused on a simple man viewing a complex world, the new film settles on a complex man with a talent to simplify his world. It is a movie that is easy to love but difficult to describe; a movie to be savored not just watched; an accomplishment to be admired not merely appreciated.

Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the premise of Benjamin Button is simple: a man is born to live a life that progresses in reverse. While he emotionally ages in the traditional way, from his first day to his last, he physically ages in reverse, from his last day to his first. That means, in his early years, he is a young person emotionally with the physical appearance of an elderly man. And, as he emotionally ages, he grows physically younger.

In less caring hands, such an idea could have become an outrageous concept perfect for summertime at the multiplex. But director David Fincher – the creator of Zodiac – treats the source material with tender loving care and respect. Instead of capitalizing on the sensational aspects of the story, he uses the unusual dimensions of the tale as an opportunity to create a compelling moral – that any person, no matter their physical limitations or eccentricities, has something special to offer and, with any person we meet, we have to look beyond the obvious to reach the heart.

Nutritional Value: High. Not only does Benjamin Button remind us that beauty is not just skin deep, it encourages us to discover what may lay dormant inside those we love most.

I confess that I would pay admission to the movies to watch Meryl Streep read the Yellow Pages. She is, without question, the finest actress working today; a presence so mesmerizing, a talent so deep, that she can make anything feel real and any movie worth experiencing.

Since making her debut in Julia in 1977, Streep has mastered any number of accents on film, as well as played the violin, shot the rapids and run a farm in Africa. And now she plays a nun in Doubt for which she is an Oscar nominee for the 15th time. It’s getting to be a habit. There is nothing this woman can’t make us believe actually happens in real life. Or in reel life.

How wonderful to see her win the Screen Actors Guild award on Sunday evening for her daring performance in Doubt. She played the role so against what many believed the piece demanded – avoiding a repeat of Cherry Jones’ stage interpretation of a religious relic in favor of making this Sister an “every nun” – just the woman you would expect to slap a wrist here and there. Streep creates a carefully revealed performance of a woman so controlled by her perceptions and fears that she has little time to consider facts. She takes the character, and the audience, on an amazing journey of self awareness and admission.

And imagine, only last summer, Mama Mia! offered her the chance to simply have a good time. Who else, beyond age 50, would have the courage to sing and dance and be silly on screen for the first time? And while the movie itself was cinema junk food, the marvelous Meryl made it feel nutritious. She, alone, was reason enough for anyone to start dancing in the aisles.

I am hoping she grabs her third Oscar on February 22nd.

As parents, we cherish the opportunity to share time as a family. Among the activities we can experience together, going to the movies can be very meaningful, especially if we use the movies to open doors to things to learn, issues to discuss, and places and people to observe.

Join me as we make going to the movies an essential, and special, part of the family experience. This blog will give you “the nutritional value” to the films you can experience at the cinema, through the mail, or on television. Any film experience can be a special time for a family.

Mark Schumann, father of three, is the “real” reel dad in “real” and “reel” life – a caring, concerned, curious parent who strongly believes that film – when effectively selected and carefully positioned as the beginning of dialogue – can enhance a family experience. Since 1999 he has shared his views of film with readers in the Northeast in the Ridgefield (CT) Press and other newspapers in the Hearst Acorn network.