I'm not joking at all and I'm looking for a serious discussion about this.

12 Years a Slave was one of the worst movies I saw in 2013. I tried reading some reviews from some critics I like, and it seemed like they just liked it because it was an honest portrayal of slavery. I already knew that slavery was an awful thing, I didn't need 2 hours of a terrible movie to tell me that. I don't feel like it's an important movie or something that needs to be shown as curriculum for students.

There were some things that I liked about the movie though: the acting was good to great all around. Ejiofour, Nyong'o, Fassbender, and Dano were all really good and the supporting performances were all serviceable. The score was really strong, and so were the costumes and set design. There were some really strong moments like seeing the slaves work while Dano sang "Run Nigger Run" or when Solomon accepted his fate as a slave as he joined in the other slaves to sing "Roll Jordan Roll". If there were more of those moments in the movie, I think it could have been the Oscar frontrunner that it is right now, but the rest of the movie wasn't that great.

Here are some of the things I hated about the movie or that really bugged me:

• Steve McQueen. Shame and Hunger were pretty good movies, but I don't think they're the movies that everyone is in love with, and this movie solidified him as one of the most overrated directors in Hollywood. It seemed like after every time Solomon lashed out at a slave master, the camera would just stay on Ejiofour's face for 30 seconds so we can see how much of a toll this is taking on him. Dude, we can see what he's going through, showing it to us is draining. Having the camera stay on Solomon for extended periods of time multiple times is overdoing it. Speaking of having the camera stay on someone for too long of a time:

• The hanging scene. When it first happened and we see the slaves go on with their business in the background like nothing is happening, I thought it was such a powerful and emotional shot. Then it went on for 2 more minutes for no reason other than McQueen wanting to show us how shitty slavery is. The real thing that pissed me off about the scene though, is after the excruciatingly long shot, the camera just pans over and all of a sudden it's night. So, what was the point of showing us that long shot? If someone came to get him down after the 2 minutes I would have at least understood why McQueen did that. If it was a 20 second shot with Solomon trying to no choke to death and the slaves going about their business in the background followed by the cut to it being night, it would have been extremely effective. Instead of being one of the strongest scenes of the year, it ended up being one of the most tedious.

• The screenplay. Outside of Spring Breakers, I can't think of a worse screenplay in a movie in a long time. There was no story, just some guy going from shitty slave activity to shitty slave activity with no real character development from anyone. Just when there starts to be some character development with Solomon accepting his fate as a slave, Brad Pitt comes from literally out of nowhere and frees him. That's just fucking lazy. I know it's based on a real story, but some exceptions were made with corny dialogue ("I don't want to survive. I want to live!"), so why not make some exceptions to make me care about or feel for at least one character?

• The passage of time. If the time Solomon was a slave wasn't in the title, I would have guessed Solomon was a slave for like 6 months, tops. We don't have any indication that time has passed except for one scene where Solomon leaves Epss' plantation to work somewhere else because the seasons are changing. No one in the entire movie ever ages despite doing 12 years of some of the hardest labor that humans have ever done. Was there no makeup department for this movie or was everyone just extremely lazy? I was half expecting Solomon's kids to be the same age when he came home at the end of the movie.

• Solomon's reunion with his family. No one in his family seemed to give a shit that he was coming home after 12 years. For fuck's sake, the second person to talk to him is his son in law, who he's never talked to in his entire fucking life. His son and his wife just stand there like he's coming back from a trip to the market. I understand that they're shocked to see him after all these years, but wouldn't you at least like run up to him and hug him or show some sort of affection instead of just standing around wishing you had better things to do? People around me were crying at this scene, but I was just in awe of how no member of his family even cares that he's home.

• No slave master cares when Solomon talks back to them. I'm no expert in slavery, but I think that the slave masters think they're superior to the slaves and wouldn't take shit from any slave. Solomon talks back all the time, makes Edwin chase him around and fall in pig shit, and nothing seems to happen to him. In fact, it seems like doing this made some of the slave owners like him more. I know that making him whip Patsey must have been one of the worst things, but he doesn't do much whipping before Edwin takes over. Compare that to Django where we see Broomhilda come out of the hot box. In the very first scene of seeing Broomhilda, I feel that she's been through worse than Solomon throughout the entire movie without Tarantino ever showing us anything Broomhilda went through besides coming out of the hot box.

There are other reasons as well, but those are the main reasons that I despise this movie. If someone can please explain to me why this is a good movie, I would love to hear it. I hate the term, but I really do feel like this movie is just torture porn. To me, the movie just seemed like Passion of the Christ, but with slavery and a worse script. Passion didn't win any Oscars, so I don't understand why 12 Years would win any. It seems like the only reason I can point to is white guilt, which is a bullshit reason to give a movie an Oscar. Give Best Picture to a movie that actually deserves it like Gravity, Her, or Nebraska.

Thank you for reading, I would love to get into some sort of civil discussion with someone who liked the movie so I can try to understand or maybe even like it more.