Oscar® week has begun! Predictions, premonitions, parties they are all happening. Our amazing TakePart bloggers will soon be posting their guesses along with some suggestions to the Academy® for new categories they should consider. But in the meantime, here are some Oscar® forecasts from Jonathan Field at the newly launched Reelist.com:

Best Picture – Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Frost/Nixon, Milk We’ll start off with the big one. Most of the experts out there seem to have already whittled it down to a Benjamin Button vs. Slumdog Millionaire battle royale. We won’t lie: we really like Button, despite some rather startling similarities between it and another film you may have seen by the same screenwriter, Eric Roth. But here’s the thing: how do you vote against a tea-serving shnook from the slums who triumphs over all that is evil in this world and wins the love of his life? You don’t dare. Slumdog Millionaire. Game over.

Best Director – Danny Boyle, Stephen Daldry, David Fincher, Ron Howard, Gus Van Sant We don’t have a clue, and neither do you. According to Variety, this is only the fifth time in Oscar® history that all the best picture nominees have had their director nominated as well. The field is crowded with names well-loved by the Academy: Howard’s already won once (A Beautiful Mind), Daldry’s been nominated for three out of the four films he’s ever directed, Van Sant flirted with glory for Good Will Hunting, but was defeated by some guy who made a movie about a really big boat. Then there’s Boyle, who just won the Golden Globe (among others), and David Fincher, who…well, he’s David Fincher.

No further argument necessary. We’re going with Boyle, for the admittedly lame reason that historically the best picture win goes hand in hand with best director. Fincher may have had a serious shot at it, if not for the fact that he’s apparently not too well-liked by the folks doing the voting.

Read the rest of Jonathan’s predictions

takepart and read our 81 Films that Pushed the Envelope.

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