Podcast Review: 12 Years a Slave

his name is chiatel ig a4 chiatel ig a4 chiwetel chiwetel ig a4 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. How about Edipero Uduye? Do it. How about Edipero Uduye? You mean Lepidium Neongo? No, that's not. How is it you struggle with all these names and you're just so fluent in pronouncing these names? Patsy. is Lupita Nyong'o. Yeah. Adapero Oduye is Eliza. Oh. Gesundheit. I don't have her on here. Well, I have all of them. Do you? Yeah. Do you want to do the intro? I don't care. I'll do the intro. Okay, good. Cool. Cool. Whenever ready. Yep, go ahead. All right, welcome to the Movies with Chill podcast. I am not your host, Chill. He's being a bum. So today, as always, joined by... This just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. So we're joined by Calvin, Chill, and David, and myself. How you doing boys? Start it over. You go. You do it. I don't like it. Welcome to the Movies with Chill Podcast. I'm your host, Chill. This podcast is bullshit. Today we'll be reviewing 12 Years a Slave from 2014. I'll never get to do nothing. 12 Years a Slave is a biographical... historical horror drama film directed by Steve McQueen. I can't believe they dug his dead body up to correct this thing. Oh my god. Oh my god. Gonna lighten it up somehow. So we just got done recording King Kong vs. Godzilla. We might be a little bit more upbeat than what this movie requires. I'm gonna shake the stink of that thing off. The screenplay for 12 Years a Slave was by John Ridley. Based on the memoir 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. Starring Chiatel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Downo, Paul Giamatti, Lepidian Nyongo, Sarah Polson, Brad Pitt, and Alfre Woodard. Also, Garrett Dillahunt and Adepero Oduye. Oh, there you go. Cool. In 1841, Solomon Northup, a free North African American, goes to Washington, D.C. in hopes of making money for his family. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery. slavery in the deep south today as always i'm joined by david lee how your boy is doing you guys watch anything new this week nothing new nothing new I was tortured. I guess I haven't watched anything new. I did watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall again. I forget how freaking funny. Oh my god, it's so funny. I don't care what anyone says about Russell Brand in that movie. He kills me. That is the greatest character, Aldous Snow. I agree. Getting rid of the Greek was even better. I agree. I really like that movie a lot. It's so good. Oi, absinthe. Take the shirt. Take my highs, but not the shirt. So, initially we were going to do this movie during Black History Month, and we pushed it off because we were going to have a member of a black historical society. uh join us but unfortunately we had to keep pushing it off and they were unable to be our guest star on this so hopefully we can you know do it justice as much as we can and so we'll give it our best shot now i am gonna say this is a very serious movie a hundred percent now man i am going to try to have as much fun with it as i can but also be respectful of the content i agree because this thing is hardcore this is not a feel-good movie no it's horrible now i picked this movie because i believe it is a very important movie this thing should be seen by everybody everybody i agree uh because again if you're not gonna look at the awful things that people can do to other people i'm gonna say 12 and up yeah yeah 12 and up i might go 14 maybe i might go 14 because there are some scenes in there that it's just i don't know how yeah you're right i don't know how a 12 year old could dissect it like i Yeah, 14, I'm thinking. Maybe even 16. Yeah. It's rough. But again, if you're not going to look at the horrible things humans can do to each other, you're just doomed to repeat it. Right. And it needs to be talked about. We can't whitewash this. We can't be afraid of it. If Germany can talk about what the Nazis did, we can talk about this. Right. I agree. That's for certain. That was basically the icebreaker perfectly wrapped up by Lee. Cool. All right. Well. Let's talk a little bit about the movie before we get into some spoilers. Sweet. It has a runtime of 134 minutes, which felt like an eternity. Premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, August 30, 2014, and had a national release date of November 8, 2013. Had a budget of $22 million, and it grossed $187.7 million. I hate that it's less than Godzilla. It pisses me off. Look at the budget, though. I know. But it was also... 10% of Godzilla's budget. It was more profitable. Right. What a waste. We gotta quit talking about it. Yeah. Stick to the topic. So, box office for that month, it placed 10th behind Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Thor, The Dark World, Frozen, Best Man's Holiday, Ender's Game. Last Vegas, Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa, Freebirds, and Gravity. We probably could have just skipped that part, Galvin. Right? Yeah. Because this is by far the best movie out of all of those movies. Not even remotely close when it comes to acting, direction, content, everything. Everything. Yeah. Emotional response, immersion. like I felt dirty watching this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's rough. So, uh, director Steve McQueen had been toying with the idea of writing a script about slavery, featuring a black man who had been born free and was later forced into slavery because it was very, I mean, I'm not going to say very common, but it was common. Yeah. But Steve McQueen was struggling with the script until he found Solomon Northup's biography. was giving it to him. Shocked that he had never even heard of Northup before, he decided to adapt the book instead. Yeah, I hadn't heard of him either until I watched this movie. No. At first, Chiatel I.G. Ford turned down McQueen's offer to play the leading role of Solomon, but then realized that he had to get over his initial fear of tackling what McQueen thought would be the role of the actor's lifetime. I.G. Ford prepared for the... role by immersing himself in Louisiana plantation culture and learning how to play the violin. Sarah Paulson was originally unable to accept the role of Mary Epps due to scheduling conflicts with the second season of American Horror Story. When series creator of American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy, found out about this, he rearranged the show's production just so that she could perform on both projects. Yeah, they're like best friends. Yeah. So. Anything he can do to help her, he's going to do it. Yeah. Feature film debut for actress Lupita Nyong'o. She had just graduated Yale's School for Drama. She went on to win Best Supporting Actress for this film and making her 16th actor to win an Oscar in her feature film debut. She was amazing. Yeah, she was. And movie won countless awards, including multiple Best Pictures. Mm-hmm. So it was, I gotta say it, Michael Fassbender, like it would be one of the hardest roles of your life to play someone. I'll tell you if, if I was half as talented as that guy is in acting and I played that part, I would need therapy. Yeah. Oh, I agree for months. Yeah. All everyone, everyone except maybe Brad Pitt's character. Yeah. Maybe, maybe I would also say, and I'm not trying to diminish anybody else in this movie, but I feel like, Michael Fassbender had to play his part like it is in the movie, or else the film wouldn't work whatsoever. Him and Paul Dano both in that movie. Paul Dano's really good at playing characters like that. I hate you. Dude, he's just a hateable guy. And I hate to say it, but... I love him. I think he's a great actor. Cumberbatch isn't the most dislikable character in this. No. He gives you a glimmer of hope. Yeah. A glimmer of hope. He was like, okay, this guy's not horrible. I mean, he still owns slaves. Right. You know, that is not great. But 95% of this movie is hopeless. Yeah. Like, you're just like, ugh. No, thank you. Yeah. So, we already went through. We would recommend people watch this. Everyone. Everyone. I think it should be shown in high school. I agree. Freshman year, I think that that's like the perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Like cultural studies. Yeah. American history. Because I think once you get to high school, you are thrown into a mix of cultures. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This should be recognized by everybody. At least in your history class. Yeah. Everybody. Yeah. All right. Well, should we move into spoilers? Let's do it. Sounds good. Cool. They good? Lee, we good? You good? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. We're good? Let's get it. All right. Okay. All right. Let's get into some trivia. Sweet. How long was Mr. Northup's family to be gone for at the beginning of the movie? Three weeks. Three weeks? I think. I have no idea. Three weeks and two days. Okay. How much is Solomon sold for? I can't remember. It's $200? $700. $700. What does John Tibbetts do for the Ford Founders? He is the overseer for construction. Carpenter. Carpenter. Yeah. You will call him master. Yeah. Yeah. Why does Patsy disappear on Sunday? So towards. Yeah. I just gotta get her some soap. She stinks. That was rough. How sad is that? Yeah. What is Solomon's grandson's name? Solomon. Solomon. Or the. Junior. Or. Yeah. Second. I think. Because it's not a junior. Yeah. Name every actor or actress in this film. For a bonus question. that has appeared in a Marvel or Marvel-associated film. Bonus points to name the characters that they played. Chiwetel Ejio... Chiwetel Ejiofor. Yep, yep. He's Mordo in Doctor Strange. Michael Fassbender is Magneto. Benedict Cumberbatch is Doctor Strange. I want to say Paul Giamatti was something, but can't remember. Lupita Nyong'o was in Black Panther. I can't think of her character's name. And Brad Pitt was in Deadpool for a second. Yep, you got it. That was one I was thinking you were going to forget. No. Alright. Negatory ghostwriter. Passenger's fool. Alright. Alright, well, let's start our long-form discussion led by Lee. Sweet. Take it away, Lee. Alright, we're starting off in 1841, and it's kind of a flash-forward. We have a group of new slaves, Solomon Northrup, played by Chiatoil Ajayafor, whatever that guy's name is. He's standing in the middle, and they're being instructed on how to cut sugar cane with the cane knife. And I don't know if it was the plantation owner or the overseer there, but he was instructing them, you know, do it this way. Don't make it sing. It makes a distinct sound when it hits the cane. And he's like, Roche, boys. That means get to work. Get to work. So then we. Skip to, it's a night scene, and Solomon, he's eating his breakfast, and he's looking at his plate, and he's got berries on the plate. He's just kind of looking at it, and he's kind of rolling the liquid around, and he sees something that's interesting to him. He's got an idea. We'll find out later what it is. Now we flash forward to present time. He's in bed with his wife. He had just put his kids to bed and trying to get them to flash back. We're getting a flash because he's at this point in time. He's a slave. He's working in the field. Right. And so we get a flashback. Okay, so I'm going from, because when they go to this scene, they stay with this timeline going forward. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you said. It's like a flash forward at the beginning. It's like a flash forward at the beginning. And then it goes back. It goes to the start of the story. The start of the story. So he just puts his kids to bed, and they're showing his home life, and he's... typical owns a nice home nice house typical dad with kids and a wife he's a good dude takes care of his kids he's you know not overly strict but he's definitely gonna lay the law down when he needs to tell us to go to bed i don't hear any noise blah blah blah so then he's stringing his violin and he starts playing and solomon can play he's got some talent playing at a party And he gets a nice round of applause at the end of the song because he's got some talent. Further showing that he's a contributing member of society and does everything everybody else does. You know, person, you know, freed and living a pretty good life. Just a normal life. Yeah. And this is up in New York as well, I believe. Like I said, he puts the kids to bed. He goes to bed with his wife, and they get up the next day, and the wife and the kids are going to leave for three weeks and two days to Saratoga, New York, where she's going to go. I believe it's cooking. Yeah, she's going to cook for a family. For a family, for some event. So they leave, and then Solomon meets Hamilton and Brown. They're introduced by a third party, and they're looking for talent for their production. I want to say it was like a kind of like a circus. I thought it was a circus too. Yeah. Like a side show. It's basically like a music trio. Yeah. That they're just going to hit up a couple of towns. Yeah. It's like a traveling. Traveling band. Musical festival kind of thing. And they said they'll pay him really well plus expenses in DC. He takes the gig and that was a mistake. So. Doesn't tell anyone where he's going. No, because his family's already gone. Yeah, he just goes with them. And this is like you can pick up a phone in 1841 and say, hey, I'm going to go to D.C. for three weeks. If I don't come back, that's where you should start looking. Hamilton and Brown are celebrating with him after he's played and, you know, done a really good job. And they're at dinner and they're drinking. And I want to say that they drugged him. I would guess so. Because I don't think. wine is just gonna get you're gonna get that drunk unless they showed he definitely got reviewed or whatever he had something and this would happen during like pirate right times too where they would either put something in your drink or they would get have people go out and scope people out and they would get you so drunk that you couldn't couldn't function couldn't function whatsoever and then you'd either wake up in it like on a ship and you were stuck or you were taken down south yeah sold into slavery good stuff So he's drugged and he wakes up the next day in a basement somewhere in chains and has no idea how he got there. Doesn't have any idea what's going on. And I would be losing my shit at that point. He does. I mean. Because I mean, I'm assuming he knows exactly what could happen to him. Right. You know, this isn't new territory. This is the 1840s. Slavery's been around for a good. 200 years in this country. It's not uncommon knowledge. I do want to point out too that for this movie, I knew what it was going to be about going into it just based off the title. I was kind of wondering about the transition of him being a freedman to him being a slave. I always try and like most viewers I feel like, you're thinking about what would you do if you were in that scenario exactly and this movie is so heart-wrenching even more so because everything that he does is exactly what i would have done exactly right you know i'm saying and i think that that's what beats you down into this movie even more so right so yeah it's it's horrible yeah so he wakes up again in chains has no idea what's going on He tries to communicate to these people that he's a freed man. And they're like, you are a Georgia runaway. Yeah. You are a slave. And he goes, my name is Solomon Northup. And he goes, no it isn't. And you're a slave. And you're from Georgia. And that's where you're going back to. So get your head around it. And not only that. He still tries to push the issue. And then he catches a beating. An unmerciful beating. Like with this board. And the dude. breaks the board over his back yeah hitting him so hard and then he switches to a leather strap to finish him off and i cannot imagine the pain that he endured i it sickens me that another human being could do it to another person it's just it's horrible just so bad so then let off and he lays there and i'm assuming passes out and they come back and another guy brings him some food and a new shirt And he tells them to take that one off and wear this one. And he pulls it off and you see the back of it is just literally shredded. Yeah. Covered in blood. It's raw. Like, oh, it was so bad. And he has the wherewithal to want to keep the shirt because his wife gave him the shirt. And when they take it from him, he's like rags and tatters, rags and tatters. It's just garbage. You don't need it. this is your new life now you don't forget about this you're never going back there right i would have lost it yeah yeah i'd have been screaming but that's just me but that would have led to another beating yeah it would it definitely would have led to another beating and i man how long can you keep that up yeah i couldn't do it and the whole time you're thinking too that he's already in the south you And the most heartbreaking thing is right after this scene, it pans out and you see our nation's capital. Right. Yeah. In the background. So he hadn't even moved down south yet. Yeah. He was just drugged and then pulled in some random person's house. Mm-hmm. So the next thing, they're washing up and it's a group of slaves and they're trying to get them cleaned up. And here comes a boy, maybe eight, nine. At the most. And he's yelling for mama. Solomon's trying to tell him, shut up. Unless you want to catch a beating, I'd shut your mouth. Right. This is what's going to happen here. And he kind of gets him to calm down a little bit. And they all get washed up. So he starts talking to a few of the other slaves. And they're kind of discussing the situation. And you can tell Solomon is educated. He is very articulate. He is a very. robust vocabulary oh yeah um he's no dummy talent talented human being yeah and a couple of the other ones are just as educated and they're they're trying to figure out okay what can we do uh to get out of this situation and it's it's just not going to happen you know they know that you know if they try they're just going to kill us right you know we're not worth anything to them if we're causing problems so They're leaving out, heading south. They're being smuggled out on a wagon, and they're covered. And, you know, because it's kind of frowned upon up there in the north. You know, not real cool. So, and they're effectively kidnapping somebody that is a freed person. They know that he's freed, and they just don't care, because they're going to get away with it. Yeah. He doesn't have any... All for money. You don't have any rights anyway, you know. Direct quote here is like, if you want to survive, say as little as possible. Tell no one who you really are and tell no one you can read unless you want to be a dead person. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the cold, hard facts that you keep. You stick to the story. You're just going to pay for it. Yeah. As long as they can give it to you. So they get to the boat and. The three of the males or two of the other males and him are kind of trying to plot to see what they can maybe get away with to get off this boat. Maybe we could fight them or, you know, you know, one of them says we just need to survive for right now until we can find a better situation. One of the things, too, that I read up on is a lot of people that were taking by boat to the south. Not everybody made it because of the conditions underneath. And not only that, but if. if they were to get loose or free, like free from their chains, many people would just jump off board because they knew that drowning or they thought that drowning would be a better outcome than what awaited them. Or then there's the possibility that you could get away if you could swim, obviously. And I don't think there's no way to stop those boats like they are today. They're just heading down south on the river. It's like, I can't go back. So that one just got away. That's why you take more than what you need, I guess. Cover your losses, but so terrible. So then a male comes down to the hold, and he's coming for Eliza, who's played by Adepero Uduye. And she has two children. And, of course, she's going to try to bargain with the guy, you know, do what you need to do with me, but leave my children alone. And then another guy gets up to defend her, and he just gets stabbed. immediately without even thought and that's exactly what you know solomon was saying is like we have to survive here until we can do something about it so they just they stab him kill him and unceremoniously just wrap him up and throw him overboard and that's it that nothing is said just yeah get rid of it horrible yeah horrible so we uh we land at the port I'm assuming in Georgia. And one of the, the other one that survived with Solomon, his owner shows up and rescues him and gets him off the boats is that's my property. Here's the deed for him. He belongs to me. And he goes, well, I don't know anything about this. He goes, yeah, I bet you don't. You're going to even my property back though. Yeah. And he goes and Solomon's like, what about me? Tell him I'm a freed man. And not a word is said. Yeah. And Solomon's just like, oh great this is awesome so we flash back uh to sol and being free they're looking they're shopping you know they're in town he's got his two children with his wife and they're gonna go looking for some stuff and she wants a bag for her trip And they go in and another slave owner has a slave with him and he sees Solomon and his family free. And he just doesn't understand. Yeah. He doesn't get like, how are these people doing whatever the hell they want to do? And I'm stuck with this white dude. Yeah. And so he goes into the shop and the shop owner is treating Solomon like a normal person. You know, not horrible. Right. Wanting to do business with him. And. The slave comes in and he sees what's going on and the owner comes in and he gets that look of displeasure because the white shop owner is doing business with the black freed man and he's not too happy about it. So he grabs his slave and rolls out Jasper was his name and gives the disapproving looks. And I'm like, man, you're just. terrible you're a terrible human being i already hate you so then we flash back to the the slave pen basically we're we're gonna sell the slaves and paul giamatti is taking role yeah calling out everybody's name and we get to solomon and he calls him out his name is platt and he goes your name's platt because my name is not platt and then he catches another beating your name's platt and you'll respond to that and that's it you're a slave and i'm gonna sell you yep so wrap your head around it um so then we do um basically showcasing the livestock probably 15 20 it's crazy it's crazy that it ever even happened i'm african americans they're all naked just standing there like cattle and people are coming in and perusing the the merchandise just dehumanizing to its core like i just it would just be awful i'm gonna say that probably a hundred more times how awful this is and i hope you don't get tired of it but i don't tell you so mr ford comes in played by benedict cumberbatch um and i love this dude i love benedict cumberbatch or anything he's just oh my god he's such a great actor he's just so good everything he's done i've loved so he's talking to Paul Giamatti's character, and I can't remember his name, save my soul, but he's like, so how much for Platt and Eliza? And he gives him the price and he goes, all right. And Eliza at this point is just losing her shit because she knows her family is about to get split up. And she's begging to whoever buys her to keep her children and she'll be the most faithful slave there ever was. If you just let me keep my children. This was the first time that I cried in this movie. This was hard. Very hard. If I could interject, the hard part about this is you've got this mom who has two children, a boy and a girl. The boy has just been ripped away from her before Benedict Cumberbatch came in. And sold. And sold. He's gone. She knows she'll never see him again. So she has the younger daughter. And she's begging Benedict Cumberbatch, if you buy me, please buy my daughter. So Benedict Cumberbatch is like, how much for the little girl? Oh, well, you can't afford that. He's like, well, what are you talking about? She's half the size of the mom. And that's the same reasoning. This is the most disgusting thing in the entire movie, in my opinion, by the way. And they don't even say it. They don't have to. Nope. Because you automatically know. That, oh, she's not going to be used for work. No. Right. She's going to be a pleasure girl. Yep. And he's like, you don't understand. She's worth more than anybody here. Yes. And that made me physically ill. Yeah. That you, as a human being, could sell a little girl into that life. Yeah. And profit off of it. There isn't. a sufficient level of hell for that person. No. There just isn't. I agree. It is the worst human experience ever. Yeah. And it just, it made me sick. Yeah. Like, completely sick. And everybody, even Benedict Cumberbatch, everybody in that room knew exactly. And Benedict Cumberbatch, Mr. Ford, he knew he couldn't afford her. Yeah. And he's like, I'm just going to take you. That's all I can do. I'm taking you and Platt, and that's it. And then Eliza just breaks down accordingly. Just, ugh. And this is just the first 20 minutes. Yeah, this is the first 20-30 minutes of the movie. So we get to the plantation, and Eliza is still distraught. And the mistress of the house tells her, Your children will soon be forgotten. And to the, I would have said, The hell they will. You know. If I took your children from you, would you forget them at any time ever? No, you wouldn't. So I don't want to hear that. So now we meet a couple of other members of the cast at the plantation, Mr. Ford's plantation, Paul Dano, Mr. Tibbetts, the head carpenter. Yeah. And he introduces himself and the overseer of the plantation, and you will refer to him as master, and you will refer to me as master. And then we get the patty roller song, which was awful. Yeah. And if anybody doesn't know what a patty roller is, it's basically a slave hunting group of people. When you escape, they get a group of people together and they go hunting for you. And when they find you, bad things are usually going to happen. Yeah. You're probably just going to get hung on the spot. Tortured. Or tortured. Beat. You know. Dogs set on you. Hobbled. So you can't run away again. So they have another name called Regulators. Yep. And they were semi-official secret police who kept slaves in line in antepellum times. These groups also served the model for post-war terror society, the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah. Great bunch of dudes. Yeah, so Tibbets is hammering it home that I'm in charge. and you're going to do what I say. You're going to toe the line, or bad things are going to happen. And I have no qualms giving you all the bad things. He kind of takes pride in his cruelty, in my opinion. Yeah. Okay, so we're working. It's basically like a logging operation at this point. And Solomon comes up with a great idea to transport the logs by water from where they're cutting them to the sawmill down river. And he's bringing his idea to Mr. Ford. And Tibbetts is standing there just shitting all over his idea. And he says, are you a or are you an engineer? And he asked him three times. And he goes, I have done. He lifts off his resume of all the stuff that he has worked on. It's impressive. Like he knows what he's doing, obviously, because I can get this to work with minimal cost and you're going to make more money this way. You're going to have me and two other people could do this and everybody else could go do something else productive. Because otherwise they're having to log by hand those. Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, cart them back and it's a pain in the butt. So he comes up with the idea and Tibbetts, of course, hates it because it's not his idea. Tibbetts seems like a very educated man. Oh, yeah. But I also, I don't know, I also feel like Tibbetts kind of gets pleasure out of seeing these guys do the manual labor of taking him back and forth. Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely. If it makes it easier on these guys. Yeah. The more arduous the task is and the more physically demanding it is, the more demeaning it is, is exactly what you're going to be doing for him. You hate Tibbetts. Yeah. You hate him. I hate him. Almost as much as Epps. Almost. I almost said Godzilla vs. King Kong. I was going to ask you about that. No, because there's a little bit of a redeeming quality with Godzilla vs. King Kong. That's true. I'm just, I was joking. Tibbetts has no redeeming qualities. Trying to make it a little lighter. Paul Dano or Mrs. Carmody from The Mist? Who do I hate more? Paul Dano. If you have a gun with one bullet in it, Lee. Oh, it's easy. I'll stand it up next to each other and shoot him through the neck. Yeah. And then I'd beat him with a gun to make sure. Yeah. That they're dead. No, but if I had to pick one of the two, it's going to be Tibbetts. Yeah. That guy's just mean to be mean. He's a piece of shit. Yeah. Don't like him. So, as a reward of doing such a good job with the logging, Mr. Ford gives... Solomon a violin. And he's kind of taken aback. Like, wow, I'm shocked that you've given me a personal item. You know, you're not. Obviously not defending Ford. No. A slave owner. Right. But he is the only decent one in the entire movie. If I was going to be a slave, I'd hope my master was like Ford. Right. Not here to. Not a good person. No. Kick the crap out of you. But the lesser of the evils. The lesser of all the evils. Yes. Still a slave owner. Still bad. Right. But at least he's somewhat human. Yeah, has... Some mercy. Some compassion. Compassion. Yeah. So... Empathy. Yeah, right. So, Eliza cries still, and Solomon is getting fed up, and he yells at her, and they debate. He does yell at her, yes. Like they debate. He's like, you know, master Ford is what a slave owner. Yeah, yes, exactly. He's a slave owner. I was like, but it could be worse. She was, let me weep for my children. And, uh, she just goes on and on and she's overheard by the mistress of the plantation and she's not having it. Uh, she's not going to be surrounded by that melancholy. Right. So you get rid of her. And that's what Ford does. And to me, One thing I didn't like about his character is he didn't have much of a backbone. Not at all. No balls. Yeah. He folded rather quickly on that. And then he folds again rather quickly. In one of the best scenes in the movie? Yeah. So the next scene, Solomon's working on some sort of building with Tibbets. I don't know. It's the best scene in the entire movie. And Tibbets is riding him. make them boards flush now make them boards flush i did you did not they are not flush pull them off and redo them that's not flush so eliza gets the boot um it kind of shows her backstory and she was a slave to another owner who was in love with her and had children with her or the the daughter was the the slave owner's child and he promised her freedom And that, you know, I'm going to make you free and you're going to be my wife and blah, blah, blah. Well, then the slave owner dies and his children are like, yeah, get rid of those. Right. And she sells them off to where she ends up now. And it's just, it's, it's awful. You know, they, they get passed around. Like they're just an afterthought. Like, oh, I can't have you around. I'm not going to be looking at you. And it's like, literally, like she said, she sold her flesh and blood. Yeah. That is her sister. that she half sister that you're selling yeah and it disgusting just terrible yeah so we we cut back to the building that solomon's working on and he says he um did as instructed and if there's something wrong then it's it's wrong with the instruction itself yeah tibbets did not like hearing that at all not even a little bit you He goes, I told you to do this. I told you to procure a keg of nails. He goes, I got them right here. He goes, boy, you're just full of answers, ain't you? And just starts whipping him. And it didn't go so well for Mr. Tibbetts. No, it did not. Because Solomon decides, yeah, I'm not going to take this from you. And whips him back. Oh, yeah. He beats the shit out of him. Which I thought was inadvisable. No, I agree. But it is very satisfying. It's very satisfying. But it is, again, inadvisable. Not just this movie, but any time that... Paul Dano's in a movie, and he gets his butt whipped. He plays such a good weasel. He does. He really does. He was the best Riddler, though. I'll tell you this. I love him as the Riddler. I'll tell you this. I felt bad for him in Prisoners. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because Hugh Jackman went to work on that dude. Yeah, he did. He plays such a good no-backbone weasel. He's so good at it. He's a strong man. Oh, he's so good at it. Yeah, there will be blood. Love it. Again, another time. No, that is definitely another time. So Solomon beats him, and he gets away. He whips the shit out of him. He whips the shit out of him, and then finally he gets away from him, and you're going to pay for that. Yeah. And you know. You're like, yee, watching it. Bruh. Yeah. You know what you just did. They're not going to overlook that. Yeah. It's not just going to be swept under the rug. No. So Paul Dana goes. and gets a couple of guys and they come and get him and they string him up. Rope around his neck, over the tree. They raise him up to where his tiptoes are touching the ground. And the overseer comes back, finally. And it's not that quick either. No. It's like a full two or three minutes. Yeah, it starts getting dark. It was hours. Yeah, it was hours for him. But as far as watching him on screen, It's a full, like, two or three minutes, and it takes forever. Yeah, they let you watch it. So before he gets strung up, like, the Overseer comes back and says, You sit here. I'm going to go get Mr. uh ford but if you run i can't protect you so you stay right here yeah and so he leaves and then paul dano and his buddies come back and string him up yeah and at the time they're stringing him up like i said he's he's tiptoes only the overseer comes back and tells him like look you are gonna get out of here this is mr ford's property and if you kill it he still owes for this this slave right so you They leave and Tibbetts is still mad. He's like, you got no cause. I do. It's his property, not yours. I'll do what I want. And then the overseer just leaves him there. And I'm like, bruh, you could have cut him down. I mean, he could still die. He made a point. What if he passes out? Yeah, that's crazy. That whole scene is crazy. I didn't understand it. I was like, you should have cut him down. Yeah. Maybe tied him up and put him in a hot box or something. But I don't know. That was hard. I didn't understand it. But it's bad. So finally, Mr. Ford comes home, cuts him down. And it's dark. Yeah, it's dark now. So this happened in the morning. The beating happened in the morning. And it's dark. So he's been there all goddamn day. All day, yeah. And somebody does come up and give him some water at some point. one of the other slaves comes and brings him a sip of water. And I'm like, wow, don't go all out. Yeah. You know? So he cuts them down, brings them in the house and he's laying down on the floor and he's getting his shotgun. And look, I, I don't know what I'm going to do. If they show up in numbers, we're screwed. They're going to get you. And I am not gonna be able to stop them. So I'm going to have to sell you to somebody else. Now you're not going to like it. He has a reputation for being extremely strict. Yeah. and brutal with his sleigh psychotic yeah uh but at least you're gonna be alive so he ships him off to mr epps played by michael fosbender and kills this role yeah he does this so good i have not hated a character as much as i hate this guy in a very long he's crazy long time he's an alcoholic he has no redeeming qualities none whatsoever funny you brought up that he was an alcoholic because he had his makeup artist paint his mustache on with alcohol with like a lot of alcohol so that the other actors around him could smell the alcohol on him and react naturally to that smell so oh yeah god it was just so bad so bad i love method actors yeah Oh, so Epps is just a great guy. Let me tell you, let me tell you, he uses the Bible to justify beating the shit out of his slaves. Yeah. And I, it's so bad for, for anybody to use that book in that way. You know, I don't. prescribed to that stuff years yeah unfortunately yeah i don't prescribe to that stuff or subscribe to it but i don't i really don't think it's supposed to be used like that no no at all no uh but and again you know people are going to twist everything they can yeah uh so he's a great guy so it's a cotton plantation down here and we're gonna pick cotton and every day we're gonna weigh everybody's progress how much did you how much did you do how much what's the quota you know a good slave will pick you know 200 pounds a day easily right and if you don't make your numbers from the day before you get pulled out and you get beat it's got to keep production up but i don't know so you got to make your you got to make your numbers and then patsy i don't know if you've ever weighed cotton but i don't weigh much you they don't weigh much yeah yeah for you to pick 200 pounds of cotton in a day of course i'm assuming that day is probably 14 to 16 hours long was it 200 or was that just lapidium nyongos no no lapidium nyonga wasn't even near 200 right she was 500 pounds oh yeah she picks with mo vega yeah yeah finish it right uh so patsy is the hot shot she picks cotton like nobody's business and she has favor of Mr. Epps in ways that nobody wants it, obviously. It's just. But just like any good worker, you've got to keep them numbers up. Yep. You've got to keep them numbers up. If you don't, you'll get whipped. So we're done with picking cotton and Patsy's out here making corn husk dolls. Oh, man. Really good work. They look great. She's had a lot of practice. Yeah. So she's trying to make some sort of happiness in this dismal situation. Yeah. The next scene, Epps is drunk. Shocker. Yeah. Middle of the night. This becomes a big shocker. Yeah. He gets all the slaves up, and we're going to have a party. We're going to dance. He does have a party, though. You know? And he's got Epps, or he's got Solomon playing the fiddle, and everybody's just having a great time. You can see it on their faces. I mean, even Solomon. What are you doing? When he's playing the fiddle, he's nothing behind his eyes. No. He's... dead yeah yeah well you got to think about you know they worked probably like i said 12 14 16 hours that day and he got him up in the middle of the night and guess what they got to do in the morning again get up and pick more fucking cotton yeah yeah so they're all just like like dead inside they're like so exhausted but he's got him out here dancing and having a good time and just not great so then you The mistress Epps comes down because he's making all this noise and she's not happy about it. And she throws a whiskey decanter and hits Patsy in the face. Listen, she really kills this character. She does good too. Like, I don't know who to hate more. They're equally insane. I don't know who to hate more. I don't know who to hate more. I want to hate her more because at least she's not drunk. Yeah. She's just spiteful to be spiteful. Jealous. Yeah. Because she knows. Putting it to Patsy. Yeah. You know, in the middle of the night. He has a lust for Patsy. Yeah. Not like Patsy's putting on any advances towards him either. Right. You know what I mean? She's just trying to get through her day. Yeah. You know, be unseen. Unseen, yeah. But, you know, pick 500 pounds of cotton and you're going to get a good hard look. Yeah. And then she demands that Epps sells her. Yeah. You get rid of her. And he goes, I will get rid of you before I part with Patsy. It ain't gonna happen. So wrap your head around it, Darby. Damn. Yeah. Can't take that production hit. Mm-hmm. Can't have it. so we're out picking more cotton fun just showing their day-to-day life of how miserable it is and out in the heat and i don't know not just heat but georgia heat yeah georgia heat and i don't know if you if you know what picking cotton entails oh it's painful it's painful it's extremely painful and poke you yeah your fingers just turn into hamburger after a while so um it's just bad so miss epps sends plat on an errand she wants him to go to the store to pick up some items um she gives him a little little medallion which is basically like a hall pass it says yeah i i they know where i am i'm on an errand yeah so don't mess with me but you still gotta you gotta still mind your business right keep your head on a swivel because nobody cares about you so he's he's walking along and and he's coming back and he he rolls up on patty rollers and they've caught some runaways and they're they're just gonna hang them Right then and there. More confirmation that you can't just leave. Yeah. You have some freedom, but you're not getting away. Right. Not here. You're a black face, and all black faces are accounted for in this area. Yeah. So getting out of here is not going to be easy. And these dogs are trained to find you. Yeah. You're not getting away. Yeah. So the tree. where Solomon sees those guys being lynched was actually used for lynching and is surrounded by the graves of several slaves. Damn. That's awful. Yeah. Ugh. Man, I don't know how to feel about that. Right. I mean, why film there? Well... I know, I know, but I'm just saying, why? Man. Yeah. That would be unnerving to me. Yeah. Like, having to act on that, in that area, would just feel... Dude. disrespectful to me i would i would hope that like for the actors sake that they didn't tell them until after yeah but if if there's graves there i'm sure everyone knew yeah because they would have had to have been the they scout locations for but they would have had to been respectful yeah you know what i mean so they wouldn't want them to be disrespectful in the area right so everyone should have known imagine you didn't tell them and the guy just like hey i gotta I got to take a piss. Yeah. And he goes over and, you know, pisses on a rock. Yeah, that's actually the slave that died here 300 years ago. Yeah. That's his grave, and you just pissed on it. Yeah. Dumb, dumb. Anyway, so we've got some, just to comment on the cinematography of this thing, which is shot beautifully. They've got some great shots of these mangroves, and it's just really an interesting location. I'm not sure I'd want to live there, but I could visit. Solomon has got to retrieve Patsy from Mr. Ford. She is at the Shaw's. I'm sorry, the Shaw's. The Shaw's, again, another plantation owned by a white guy, but his wife is a black slave. I don't know if she's freed or if she's just worked her way up to that. Yeah, I don't know, but she's enjoying his favor, obviously. She doesn't have to work in the field ever. And she gets to sit at the nice table and eat the fancy foods and be taken care of. She's dressed. It's the best situation you could think of. And dressed normal. In that crappy life. At least she's not being worked to death. So Epps is not a fan of the Shaw's at all. I'm assuming for that reason alone. Yeah. And he wants Patsy back now. Yeah. And he's drunk. So get her back here. Because I got plans for her. obviously he brings her back and epps tries to stab solomon yeah and he's kind of playing cat and mouse with him trying he is right away you know he gets between him and the tree and they just kind of go around and around and he jumps into the pig pen and slips and falls and he kind of gives up after that and not a good look for mr epps but you know what you can do when you're that drunk it's it's nighttime and epps is coming for patsy gonna have a little late night rendezvous he rapes her and you can just see in her face she just checks out yeah she just out there she dissociates and just lets him finish and he he starts choking her at the same time because as much as he loves her he still hates black people right so just no respect for their life whatsoever you're my property and i'll just do whatever i want with you and if i want to kill you i will no big deal you get over it Oh, just. Yeah. I think that he hates that he loves her. Right. Yeah. He hates it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. But he doesn't understand. But he knows that his wife doesn't love him. No. Because he's a drunk and an asshole. Right. And she's just as much of an asshole as he is. Right. So it's it's just bad for everybody. So then Solomon gets sent out on another errand to the store. And this time he. stashes some paper because he's gonna i'm assuming write a note at this point in time we don't know how he's gonna accomplish it and mail a letter he's gonna try to write a letter and send it send it home or something uh so now we we do dinner and dancing again and another drunken party but this time the mistress is like handing out treats to everybody except patsy you ain't getting nothing yeah she challenges epps on Patsy again, and she comes over and scratches her face. Just... Just cruel. Just cruel. You know? Before they did a lot of their brutal scenes together, Peter Nyong'o and Michael Fassbender performed a ritual of making nice with each other. According to Nyong'o, we wouldn't say anything to each other, we'd just look each other in the eyes and grasp our hands. Our characters were in such opposition, but we as actors needed each other in order to be able to... To go the distance of portraying that scene. I don't know how they did it. Right. I don't know. I couldn't do it. There's no way in the world. I don't care how good an actor I was. I couldn't act in that situation and treat somebody that way. Right. I just couldn't do it. Well, even though it's horrible, and I think even though Michael Fassbender, like everybody, anybody that watches this movie will be like, that guy. That guy. But it's important. It's important for people to know. It's extremely important for people to know. And I think it's extremely important that he. I'm wondering how many people have come up to him. I mean, think about it. That guy in real life. That's what his memory is. There's probably hundreds of those. I know. But that guy in particular, a drunk, that treated people like that. That's his memory. That's his legacy. Yeah. Right. That everyone who is ever going to hear about him, see this movie, is going to hate him with all of their soul. Good. Yeah. Good. That's what I'm saying. Exactly good. And that's what I think Michael Fassbender is like. Yeah. People need to know. Yeah. This. Piece of shit. Right. Yeah. And again, uh, evil of all evil. So much props and kudos to Fassbender for being able to pull this off. I agree. And still have a soul. Yeah, I agree. I don't know how I don't eat you alive. I would, I would have an extremely long conversation with him about this. Just like, tell me how you got through this every day. Right. Because it's gotta be just crippling your soul. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, just, Can't feel good. No. No. So now it's nighttime and Patsy wakes up Solomon and asks him for a favor. You know, I want you to kill me because I can't do this anymore. You'll be doing me a mercy. And he's like, I'm not going to do it. You can't ask me to do this. I can't live with that. It's like, this is damnation we're talking about. And she's like, it's not damnation. It's a mercy. God will favor you for this. And that's how bad it is when you are in that situation and you're going to beg another human being to kill you because you can't do it. I can't imagine being that hopeless. I just can't. I can't fathom it either. And not even like. I've been hopeless in my life. I'll admit that. Yeah. Every day. I struggle with a lot of stuff, but not like that. That's a new low. That's a level of hopelessness and just utter defeat and bleak. I can't even think about it. It's so bad. And not even in a fast, not talking about suicide in a good way, but she's asking him to just go drown me. Right. Because that's going to be better than what I have to endure every day. For the rest of my life. right and she she may have been what 20 something probably not even that yeah it's probably 18 19 in in this in the in the story yeah if not younger you you're gonna work for the next 70 years well if that who knows i mean because you didn't know in 1841 that in 20 you know 22 23 years we're gonna abolish slavery right but it don't get any better after that okay you probably didn't even think it'd be possible no yeah because all your reality is there's no education no they don't educate them on anything oh no they don't know about the north you know what i mean they don't get to read no and it's not and even though like reading is seen as like oh you know how to read like a disc because they didn't want them like the best way to subjugate somebody is to not give them as no education yeah they don't know any better yeah can't read in a book how great life could be right This is your lot in life. The cotton worms find the Epps Plantation. And of course, it's the slaves'fault. They brought this evil upon them with their wicked ways. And so I've got to send you off somewhere because there's nothing for you to do here. So he loans out his slaves to the judge, Judge Turner, for the season. And this is where the sugar cane comes in. They're going to go to this plantation. and cut sugar cane for this guy. And this is when he comes up with the idea of the berries, and he makes a stylus to write a letter. Ink. Yeah, ink. Using the berries as ink. And he's got his paper. This is back to the beginning of the movie. Right. So the judge questions Solomon about his musical talent and says that got you a gig to play for my anniversary, and whatever you make, you can keep, which is unheard of. Right. I was shocked. They return from... the turner plantation and they do not look very enthused uh they're walking back and epps stops him and starts questioning him and he's heard stories already about what solomon has done did you beguile him with your slick ways right i'm like dude you're just ready to pick a fight with this dude yeah you're already mad at him for making him look stupid you in the pig pen yeah and not being able to catch him so it's just it's only a matter of time before it comes down to it patsy is gone again she's at the shaw's and solomon can't find her he does find her and they come back patsy's gonna take a beating because she ran off to the shaw's with you know you i know what you're doing over there blah blah blah and she's i want to get soap and she shows him a little bar soap because i stink i I make myself sick. I need to wash myself up. And I went to get soap. You won't even give me soap. And so he's like, he's getting mad. I don't believe your lies. Epps, you're going to beat her. And Epps is like, no, I'm not. And she's like, I'd rather it be you than him. More awfulness. Man, that scene is so hard. Yeah, this is the hardest scene in the movie. The hardest scene to freaking watch. Because I'll tell you what, there's not... You feel defeated. He feels defeated. She feels defeated. I'm saying you as in the audience. You feel defeated. There's not a lot of visual effects in this movie. But the visual effects on this part... The mist. yeah just and the sores that like it shows her skin opening up when he so pd nyongo said in reference to the scene that it was all about the crack of the whip you hear it you feel it i felt the wind of it every single time. I didn't need much more. That was one technical thing, and it definitely took some finessing because obviously I can't see what's happening. I can't see the whip. I can only react to the sound of a whip. Yeah, it was hard, but that day was as real as it could have possibly been for me because in preparing for it, all I could do was be present. Dang. That is a mind scrambler. Hints Oscar. Right? Dang, man. That is crazy. So Solomon takes the whip and just starts kind of pantomiming, as the mistress says. Yeah. He's like, he's not putting anything to that. And he's like, you got to hit her. Hit her harder. So he does. He hits her a little bit harder and a little bit harder. And then Epps finally gets fed up and takes the whip from her and gives it all. He gave her every bit of that whip and just turned her back. How she survived it. I don't know. I don't know how she stayed conscious for as long as she did. No. Because I know she passed out. But the pain. For weeks, you're going to feel that. Oh, yeah. If not months. You know? Because it's going to rip your muscles. What kind of medical care are you going to get? None. They had some salve they were putting on that thing. Right. They obviously knew something to put on it. They had to, you know what I mean? Gotta have some sort of remedies. Something. Homemade remedies. I mean, he just literally just beat her unmerciful. Yeah. The only other beating I've seen worse in a movie would have been The Passion of the Christ. Yeah. And those things are neck and neck. I think The Passion of the Christ was... was worse yeah but this was pretty friggin bad yeah i just it was extremely hard to watch yeah so they bring her inside and they try to kind of patch her up the best they can she's like screaming just you know i can't can't imagine just can't yeah so next scene we've got a new a new member to the crew uh arms be white guy oh bastard another Mmm, upstanding human being. And it's at this point in the movie, too, where you're thinking, I've seen the worst of it. Right? What else is left? He has, and like, I don't know about... He is the shining light. Yeah. That's what you... You think there's hope. He's hope. We're in spoilers, but when you watched this for the first time, did you know how it was going to end? No. Wait, the movie? Yeah, the movie or the story overall? No. No? I did not. I knew going into it that he was going to make his way back to his family. Right. I was seeing this as like-This is it. This is it. We got through the rough shit. Yeah. We're in the clear. This is how it- ends. You know what I'm saying? When I first watched this movie, I was like, well, he could die, but then I was like, then how'd the story get out? How'd he write his memoir? How'd he write his memoir if he didn't get free? So I was like, well, this could be it. He seems like he could be, but and, you know, I know it's not always the case every every role is different but this guy Dillahunt never plays a stand-up guy yeah no yeah never no like everything he's been in except for the tv show he was in I can't think of the name of it it was a comedy he he's a bad guy yeah even played a terminator yeah whatever so he shows up we're doing the weigh-ins at picking cotton and he doesn't even get 100 pounds yeah but he's white so i'm past you get a pass you know just work on it guy you'd be all right no big deal no big deal guess who does get a beating good old solomon because he didn't make his quota from the day before so he's going to take a beating arms b tells us a story that He was an overseer on a plantation and could not stay off the bottle. Because if you put the whip to another human being for long enough, you're going to need some sort of therapy. Yeah. And that's where he found it was in the bottle. And he couldn't keep his work up and ended up in debt. And he's trying to work it off here on the Epps plantation. So Solomon, for some reason, trusts Armsby. and asks him to mail a letter for him. And he's got his coin that he earned from his fiddle playing. He says, if you mail this letter, you can have this. It's everything I have. He goes, but if you can't do it, I need you to shut your mouth about it because it could get me killed, obviously. And he's like, okay, I'll do it, and I'm not going to do whatever. I'm going to take your coin, but I'm not going to rat you out, and I'll mail you a letter. Well, that was a lie. He rats him out instantly and Epps comes and finds Solomon in the middle of the night and somehow Solomon convinces Epps that Armsby's lying because he wants him to make him overseer. He tells him he's just he's a drunk he's lying he's playing you I would never do anything like that right that's crazy talk and he bought it. I don't know how, but he bought it. And I'm like, you just dodged the bullet of all bullets right there because you were a dead man if you didn't convince him. You were going to die right then and there. And I just, okay, all right. So we're back out in the field, and it's hot. It's so hot. It's so hot, and they're picking cotton. And I can't remember his name, but they called him Uncle Something. He just falls out dead from heat, just dies right then and there. Supervisors comes over and starts beating him. They try to get him to get up. He's like, no, that guy's dead. He's off for the rest of, you know, ever. So they have a little funeral and they start singing. And Solomon is just kind of really facing that this is going to be my life. He starts singing. Yeah. And he's got to try to find some solace, you know, some sort of. Peace. Peace to reconcile. Acceptance. Acceptance of his fate. And then Mr. Bass shows up, played by Brad Pitt. God bless Mr. Bass. Thank you. And this is when I was like, all right. This is it. This is it. Yeah. I was like, man, I really hope they don't make Brad Pitt play a bad character. Right? Yeah. I really like Brad Pitt. I've never seen Brad Pitt play a bad guy. No. Ever. That I know of. No. It's weird. I really like Brad Pitt. So. he's questioning epps on the condition of his slaves he's like it's my property i do what i want with him he's like yeah you you don't really own them just fyi yeah and he tries to kick some knowledge to him and he's not having that you know at all he goes you really like hearing yourself talk don't you never met a man that likes hearing something talk more than you do and i'm like okay well he's a free white man talking to another free white man so Yeah. You know? Yeah. He's just mouthy, and I love it. Right? Yep. And he's still getting paid. Patsy took the beat, and that's not when she got the soap. Epps can't find her again, and she went to the Shaw's to get the soap. And this is when Solomon beats her. Just, yeah. And then Epps takes over, like I said. And at the end of that, her back looks like roadkill. I wrote that down, and that's exactly what it looked like. Like, you scraped that off the... Siler Highway. Yep. Yeah. And that, I think, is when Solomon is finally broken. Yeah. With this place. He takes the violin and just smashes it. Yeah. Burns it. It's just... Defeating. It's so heartbreaking. Yeah. Because, you know, it's one of his... The only things that would have brought him any joy. And he's just given up. So, Solomon tells Bass what happened to him. And... Bass promises secrecy, and he's asking him to send a letter to help him. And Bass is hesitant. Oh, yeah. He's like, you are asking a lot. You know what could happen to me. I'm not American, for one thing. I'm Canadian, and that's not going to save me. If I get caught, I'm as dead as you are. Yeah. And it's... But he agrees. But he says, it's my duty to help you. Oh, Mr. Bass. Just... Amazing. So the next scene, a horse and carriage shows up with three people, one of them being the county sheriff. And he's looking for. And his lawyer. Yeah. Well, the sheriff, the lawyer, and then the guy that ran the shop in New York. Right. That knows him. Right. So they show up and they call him out. Like, are you Solomon Northup? He's like, yes, I am. And he's all right. Well, you're coming with us. And then Epps comes out and he's like, where are you going with my property? That's mine. He's bought and paid for. I own him. He's like, you do not. He's a freed man. No, he's not. He's here. He's my slave. And they take him anyway. Yeah. And he starts chasing him. And that's when they're having that discussion. Yeah, he's on horse. Didn't even know what's going on behind. Right. And then Patsy is standing there watching him leave. And in the book, that's the last time he ever saw Patsy. Isn't that crazy? It's terrible. Poe Patsy. Yeah. The entire time. I felt the worst for that woman. Just terrible. He's got to leave her behind. I just hate that he had to leave her. And then this is the part where I lost my shit. He gets home and... Sees his family, and he apologizes to them for being gone. And he's gray-haired now, and... That 12 years put 50 years on the line. Oh, yeah. And he's crippled, basically. Yeah. He has a limp, and... But the reuniting with his family was just... amazing his grandson it's rough it is rough and again he's apologizing you don't even feel satisfied that's no you don't you do not feel satisfied at all you feel worse because look at what he's missed the only time you ever feel satisfied in this movie is when he beats the crap out of tibbets yeah that's it that's the only time in the movie that you're like yeah right the rest of it you're like yeah so you know they embrace and fade to black, and then they tell you about how he used this experience. He wrote the book to educate, became part of the Underground Railroad, and then mysteriously died. They don't know how it happened. I'm going to assume he was murdered. Probably. Also, he took men that kidnapped him to court. And lost. And lost. Because you don't have any rights. Well, you don't have any rights. You're a black man. You can't sue a white man. in the story. See, I thought that it was that he didn't have proof because he is a free man. No, you don't have any rights. Even though you're free, you still don't have any rights. You can't vote. You can't do this. You can't do that. So just go on about your business and then roll credits. Roll credits. Yeah. Beautiful, fantastic, horrifying movie. Extremely horrifying. It really is. I mean, it's horrifying, but everyone should watch it because this shit happened to human beings in our country. Stop. Stop. Trying to say it didn't happen. Or not talking about it. Right. Less than 200 years ago. Yeah. Less than 200 years ago. Yeah. Disgusting. It's disgusting. And again, I hate white people. I hate white people. I've said that like four times watching movies. I looked at my wife. I've said it four or five times on this podcast alone. I hate white people. Remember the Titans? It's always sweaty white people. Right? It's like, come on. Nasty asses. Why can't you just be a human being? Right. How hard is it? Well, I mean, how can you be that like... Obtuse. I mean... I know that you're brought up in that, right? Right. It's taught. But how can you not have your own thoughts like this can't? Man, this don't feel right. Right. You know what I mean? Because you had Mr. Bass who obviously was like... Educated. Yeah, this is not... Educated. How educated do you think Epps was? Not. He fell into that money. Yeah. He fell into the farm. Right. I think it was... Was it her farm? It was her dad's. Yeah, her dad's farm. So he married into it. Yeah. Yeah. So just... The South was a whole bunch of uneducated idiots. Well, that's a little broad. Even the judge. Think about it, though. I mean, I don't know what else to say about it besides wow. Yeah. Fantastic movie. Fantastic. Yeah. Unbelievably good. So, Lee, explain our ratings. Our rating system is as follows. We have an S through F, S being the pinnacle of filmmaking. In our opinion, and that is our opinion, so don't come at us. Right. We only have 10 slots for the podcast for S-Class movies. If we get to 11, one's got to fall off. We have to make that decision. I think we got some time. Since we only have two, The Way Way Back and The Exorcist. So watch those movies. Again, they're great. And then we have A, which is near perfection. Great movie. Very little to complain about. B, pretty good. here and there not great c your average movie uh d crap that's just not good you can watch it but it's it's not gonna be good and then f which is not watchable just Garbage. Garbage. Don't watch it. Find something else to do. Read a book. Right. Read this book. Yeah. So, having said that, I give this movie an A. Okay. Beautifully acted. Yeah. Powerful, powerful performances. Extremely delicate subject matter that, again, needs to be told. All the time. It should be a refresher. All the time. Watch this movie. This is how terrible we were. This is how evil we were. We don't have to be that way anymore. Not all of us, but like... No. As a species. Yeah. This is what we did to each other. As humanity, yeah. This is how low some of us could go. In my opinion, this is the lowest form of American existence. Yeah. as a country this was humanity i mean i know there's holocaust and stuff but i'm saying that's the only one that i'm gonna i'm gonna put up against it right but this was hundreds of years worth of this right this is a this is a higher death toll children you know i mean like being used as sex items and but the holocaust was extermination yeah yeah there was no you might work this i don't i don't i'm just gonna not compare them they're both just terrible they're horrible yeah yeah equally horrible yeah right on different spectrums yes but the worst part we're both it is the worst part of american history in my opinion oh just for sure the blackest yeah and for for anyone to ever try to whitewash this put a positive spin on it anything like that is unacceptable it's deplorable it is uneducated uneducated it is evil It is heartless, soulless, and you really need to take a look in the mirror of who you are. But if they feel that way, it doesn't matter. No. People are just crap sometimes. They are. But I'm going to judge you for it. Just know that. Yeah. And I'm a nobody. So again, great movie. So A. A for me. I just want to highlight Lupito Nyong'o's performance. One of the best performances I've ever seen anyone act. in ever like i i don't know what she could have done to do that better at all i agree what do you think keeps it from being an s i can tell you my reason but go for it my reason for an s is it's just it's a little overly brutal okay but again it needs it yeah but it's so off-putting in it that it just it makes you really feel yeah awful yeah and not just for the person that it's happening to, what kind of person could do that to another human being? Yeah. I don't want to imagine that person. Right. I don't want to be in the same room with somebody like that ever. And to give it an S to me, it's just, I don't, I don't, I don't think I can. Yeah. Okay. So I'm with you on everything. You said everything I'm going a plus. The only reason why I can't give it an S and this is. Just me is rewatchability. Okay. I'll never watch this movie again. I don't think I could unless I'm educating someone on it. I just, I don't think I could set through it again. That's how brutal and honest this movie was. I own this movie. It's worth buying. And I watch it. I don't think I'll ever buy it. I watch it every couple of years. I don't know, man. I don't think I can. Because I just, again. And here's the deal. I won't turn it off. Right. Like, I'll watch it. But I'm not going to seek it out. And that's the only reason why I'm not giving it an S. Right. Not the quality of the movie, not the acting, not the story, not anything about the movie. It's just the watchability. And that comes to also the heart-wrenching violence, the over-the-top. The inhumanity. The inhumanity of it. I know who I am, and I don't want to subjugate myself to that again. I know how terrible these people are. How many times am I going to say I hate people on this podcast and their ability to do bad things? I know I'll never do anything like that. So I'm just like, I got it. I want even my kids to watch this movie when they're old enough. Right. I think my wife needs to watch it, but I wouldn't have them watch it twice. Right. I rewatch it because, again, it's so powerful. Yeah, man. It totally is. I agree. But it's powerful enough to last for me. I'll remember forever. I don't know if I feel bad about this. I kind of do because I like watching it because it is so... emotionally provocative for me. I will put myself through horrible things just so I can feel it. Yeah. It's doing its job. Yeah. You have to feel these horrible things to keep that in check, in my opinion. And if you can't look at these things all the time, it's coming back. It's already starting to come back. I can't say that I love this movie because I love everything about it. about the movie like the film the acting that but i can't say that i love that story that story is Freaking heartbreaking and terrible. It is. I don't love that. I just love that it will educate people. I like the fact that he did get out. Oh, me too. That is the best part. Thank you for that, Ray, tiny speck of hope. And again, like I've said several times on the podcast, if you have a high hope factor in your movie, I'm going to gravitate towards it. Right. And... You never really see Solomon just utterly give up. He comes close. He comes real close. With the violin, I thought he was done. And the singing at the funeral. Yeah. He is on the edge, on his tiptoes on the edge. One more thing. I think one more thing. And Mr. Bass showed up. One more thing. But I think that's why he said. I think that's why he told Mr. Bass. He was like, I mean, I got nothing to lose now. Right. The difference doesn't make. And he grew the trust and the way Mr. Bass talked. Yeah, because you overheard him talking to-Educated, yeah. To Fs about how he feels about slavery. This is literally my chance. And he even like shakes his head. He's like, I don't know if I can tell you. It's like if anybody is going to help me-Because Mr. Bass is like, this man seems super educated. This guy like him is never coming back around. But Mr. Bass, the way he talks, he's like, what have you done? Like, why do you talk the way you talk? Yeah, you are very educated. Very educated man. You know what you're doing. You're not some little. You're not a slave. Unfortunately, I'm uneducated. Yeah, you weren't born a slave. Yeah. All right, you. Sorry. No, you're good. So I also was going to give it an A plus. And my reasoning for not being an S is that I didn't like the. And again, it's personal preference. Yeah. I didn't like the abruptness that the movie came to ending. You know what I'm saying? And I understand why the director chose that. But for me personally, I didn't like the abruptness of just, okay, you just went through all this awful shit. It beats the hell out of you. Yeah. And then it's, all right, now we're done. Obviously, if they're going for historical accuracy, you're not going to see the Django Unchained version of this movie where... She had told IG a Ford goes back and then fucking murders everybody and then rides off on a horse with Patty and saves her. You're not going to get that. No, but I did immediately look up what happened to Pat Patsy though. I immediately loved it. I know. I just immediately was like, what happened? And that was the last time I ever saw her. I'm like, man, I can't imagine what happened to her. Right. I don't want to. I don't either. Overall, what? A plus? A plus. I say A plus. I say A plus. All right. Well, Lee, thanks for taking us through that movie. No problem, guys. I come with the heavy stuff. I come with the heavy stuff. Well, I guess I'm glad we started with the other one. All right. Yeah. That was rough. Boy in Striped Pajamas coming up next. Nope. Nope. I haven't seen it. A couple months. No. I haven't seen it. A couple months. All right. All right. Thanks for joining us. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye. Hello and welcome to the Postcast. Just wanted to say a special thanks to Lee for going through that hard movie with us. Happy Easter to all those who celebrate. And I wanted to say thank you to all our loyal and new listeners. We invite you all to check out our Facebook group. If you're listening on YouTube, give us a like and follow us wherever podcasts are found. Look for our next episode Monday, April 8th as we review Glory Road. We hope you've enjoyed our program just as much as we did recording for you. Thank you and stay tuned for our next episode.

his name is chiatel ig a4 chiatel ig a4 chiwetel chiwetel ig a4 Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yep. How about Edipero Uduye?

Do it. How about Edipero Uduye? You mean Lepidium Neongo?

No, that's not. How is it you struggle with all these names and you're just so fluent in pronouncing these names? Patsy.

is Lupita Nyong'o. Yeah. Adapero Oduye is Eliza. Oh. Gesundheit.

I don't have her on here. Well, I have all of them. Do you? Yeah. Do you want to do the intro?

I don't care. I'll do the intro. Okay, good.

Cool. Cool. Whenever ready.

Yep, go ahead. All right, welcome to the Movies with Chill podcast. I am not your host, Chill. He's being a bum.

So today, as always, joined by... This just doesn't feel right. It doesn't feel right. So we're joined by Calvin, Chill, and David, and myself.

How you doing boys? Start it over. You go. You do it.

I don't like it. Welcome to the Movies with Chill Podcast. I'm your host, Chill. This podcast is bullshit. Today we'll be reviewing 12 Years a Slave from 2014. I'll never get to do nothing.

12 Years a Slave is a biographical... historical horror drama film directed by Steve McQueen. I can't believe they dug his dead body up to correct this thing. Oh my god.

Oh my god. Gonna lighten it up somehow. So we just got done recording King Kong vs. Godzilla. We might be a little bit more upbeat than what this movie requires. I'm gonna shake the stink of that thing off.

The screenplay for 12 Years a Slave was by John Ridley. Based on the memoir 12 Years a Slave by Solomon Northup. Starring Chiatel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Downo, Paul Giamatti, Lepidian Nyongo, Sarah Polson, Brad Pitt, and Alfre Woodard. Also, Garrett Dillahunt and Adepero Oduye. Oh, there you go.

Cool. In 1841, Solomon Northup, a free North African American, goes to Washington, D.C. in hopes of making money for his family. He is kidnapped and sold into slavery. slavery in the deep south today as always i'm joined by david lee how your boy is doing you guys watch anything new this week nothing new nothing new I was tortured.

I guess I haven't watched anything new. I did watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall again. I forget how freaking funny. Oh my god, it's so funny.

I don't care what anyone says about Russell Brand in that movie. He kills me. That is the greatest character, Aldous Snow.

I agree. Getting rid of the Greek was even better. I agree. I really like that movie a lot.

It's so good. Oi, absinthe. Take the shirt.

Take my highs, but not the shirt. So, initially we were going to do this movie during Black History Month, and we pushed it off because we were going to have a member of a black historical society. uh join us but unfortunately we had to keep pushing it off and they were unable to be our guest star on this so hopefully we can you know do it justice as much as we can and so we'll give it our best shot now i am gonna say this is a very serious movie a hundred percent now man i am going to try to have as much fun with it as i can but also be respectful of the content i agree because this thing is hardcore this is not a feel-good movie no it's horrible now i picked this movie because i believe it is a very important movie this thing should be seen by everybody everybody i agree uh because again if you're not gonna look at the awful things that people can do to other people i'm gonna say 12 and up yeah yeah 12 and up i might go 14 maybe i might go 14 because there are some scenes in there that it's just i don't know how yeah you're right i don't know how a 12 year old could dissect it like i Yeah, 14, I'm thinking.

Maybe even 16. Yeah. It's rough. But again, if you're not going to look at the horrible things humans can do to each other, you're just doomed to repeat it.

Right. And it needs to be talked about. We can't whitewash this.

We can't be afraid of it. If Germany can talk about what the Nazis did, we can talk about this. Right. I agree.

That's for certain. That was basically the icebreaker perfectly wrapped up by Lee. Cool.

All right. Well. Let's talk a little bit about the movie before we get into some spoilers.

Sweet. It has a runtime of 134 minutes, which felt like an eternity. Premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, August 30, 2014, and had a national release date of November 8, 2013. Had a budget of $22 million, and it grossed $187.7 million. I hate that it's less than Godzilla. It pisses me off.

Look at the budget, though. I know. But it was also... 10% of Godzilla's budget. It was more profitable.

Right. What a waste. We gotta quit talking about it.

Yeah. Stick to the topic. So, box office for that month, it placed 10th behind Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Thor, The Dark World, Frozen, Best Man's Holiday, Ender's Game.

Last Vegas, Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa, Freebirds, and Gravity. We probably could have just skipped that part, Galvin. Right?

Yeah. Because this is by far the best movie out of all of those movies. Not even remotely close when it comes to acting, direction, content, everything.

Everything. Yeah. Emotional response, immersion.

like I felt dirty watching this movie. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's rough. So, uh, director Steve McQueen had been toying with the idea of writing a script about slavery, featuring a black man who had been born free and was later forced into slavery because it was very, I mean, I'm not going to say very common, but it was common.

Yeah. But Steve McQueen was struggling with the script until he found Solomon Northup's biography. was giving it to him.

Shocked that he had never even heard of Northup before, he decided to adapt the book instead. Yeah, I hadn't heard of him either until I watched this movie. No.

At first, Chiatel I.G. Ford turned down McQueen's offer to play the leading role of Solomon, but then realized that he had to get over his initial fear of tackling what McQueen thought would be the role of the actor's lifetime. I.G. Ford prepared for the... role by immersing himself in Louisiana plantation culture and learning how to play the violin. Sarah Paulson was originally unable to accept the role of Mary Epps due to scheduling conflicts with the second season of American Horror Story.

When series creator of American Horror Story, Ryan Murphy, found out about this, he rearranged the show's production just so that she could perform on both projects. Yeah, they're like best friends. Yeah. So. Anything he can do to help her, he's going to do it.

Yeah. Feature film debut for actress Lupita Nyong'o. She had just graduated Yale's School for Drama. She went on to win Best Supporting Actress for this film and making her 16th actor to win an Oscar in her feature film debut.

She was amazing. Yeah, she was. And movie won countless awards, including multiple Best Pictures. Mm-hmm. So it was, I gotta say it, Michael Fassbender, like it would be one of the hardest roles of your life to play someone.

I'll tell you if, if I was half as talented as that guy is in acting and I played that part, I would need therapy. Yeah. Oh, I agree for months.

Yeah. All everyone, everyone except maybe Brad Pitt's character. Yeah. Maybe, maybe I would also say, and I'm not trying to diminish anybody else in this movie, but I feel like, Michael Fassbender had to play his part like it is in the movie, or else the film wouldn't work whatsoever.

Him and Paul Dano both in that movie. Paul Dano's really good at playing characters like that. I hate you. Dude, he's just a hateable guy. And I hate to say it, but...

I love him. I think he's a great actor. Cumberbatch isn't the most dislikable character in this.

No. He gives you a glimmer of hope. Yeah.

A glimmer of hope. He was like, okay, this guy's not horrible. I mean, he still owns slaves. Right.

You know, that is not great. But 95% of this movie is hopeless. Yeah.

Like, you're just like, ugh. No, thank you. Yeah. So, we already went through. We would recommend people watch this.

Everyone. Everyone. I think it should be shown in high school. I agree.

Freshman year, I think that that's like the perfect. Yeah. Yeah.

Like cultural studies. Yeah. American history.

Because I think once you get to high school, you are thrown into a mix of cultures. Mm-hmm. Yeah. This should be recognized by everybody.

At least in your history class. Yeah. Everybody.

Yeah. All right. Well, should we move into spoilers?

Let's do it. Sounds good. Cool. They good? Lee, we good?

You good? Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. We're good?

Let's get it. All right. Okay. All right.

Let's get into some trivia. Sweet. How long was Mr. Northup's family to be gone for at the beginning of the movie?

Three weeks. Three weeks? I think.

I have no idea. Three weeks and two days. Okay.

How much is Solomon sold for? I can't remember. It's $200?

$700. $700. What does John Tibbetts do for the Ford Founders?

He is the overseer for construction. Carpenter. Carpenter. Yeah.

You will call him master. Yeah. Yeah.

Why does Patsy disappear on Sunday? So towards. Yeah. I just gotta get her some soap.

She stinks. That was rough. How sad is that?

Yeah. What is Solomon's grandson's name? Solomon.

Solomon. Or the. Junior.

Or. Yeah. Second.

I think. Because it's not a junior. Yeah. Name every actor or actress in this film.

For a bonus question. that has appeared in a Marvel or Marvel-associated film. Bonus points to name the characters that they played. Chiwetel Ejio... Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Yep, yep. He's Mordo in Doctor Strange. Michael Fassbender is Magneto.

Benedict Cumberbatch is Doctor Strange. I want to say Paul Giamatti was something, but can't remember. Lupita Nyong'o was in Black Panther. I can't think of her character's name. And Brad Pitt was in Deadpool for a second.

Yep, you got it. That was one I was thinking you were going to forget. No.

Alright. Negatory ghostwriter. Passenger's fool.

Alright. Alright, well, let's start our long-form discussion led by Lee. Sweet. Take it away, Lee.

Alright, we're starting off in 1841, and it's kind of a flash-forward. We have a group of new slaves, Solomon Northrup, played by Chiatoil Ajayafor, whatever that guy's name is. He's standing in the middle, and they're being instructed on how to cut sugar cane with the cane knife.

And I don't know if it was the plantation owner or the overseer there, but he was instructing them, you know, do it this way. Don't make it sing. It makes a distinct sound when it hits the cane. And he's like, Roche, boys.

That means get to work. Get to work. So then we.

Skip to, it's a night scene, and Solomon, he's eating his breakfast, and he's looking at his plate, and he's got berries on the plate. He's just kind of looking at it, and he's kind of rolling the liquid around, and he sees something that's interesting to him. He's got an idea.

We'll find out later what it is. Now we flash forward to present time. He's in bed with his wife.

He had just put his kids to bed and trying to get them to flash back. We're getting a flash because he's at this point in time. He's a slave.

He's working in the field. Right. And so we get a flashback. Okay, so I'm going from, because when they go to this scene, they stay with this timeline going forward. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you said.

It's like a flash forward at the beginning. It's like a flash forward at the beginning. And then it goes back. It goes to the start of the story. The start of the story.

So he just puts his kids to bed, and they're showing his home life, and he's... typical owns a nice home nice house typical dad with kids and a wife he's a good dude takes care of his kids he's you know not overly strict but he's definitely gonna lay the law down when he needs to tell us to go to bed i don't hear any noise blah blah blah so then he's stringing his violin and he starts playing and solomon can play he's got some talent playing at a party And he gets a nice round of applause at the end of the song because he's got some talent. Further showing that he's a contributing member of society and does everything everybody else does. You know, person, you know, freed and living a pretty good life.

Just a normal life. Yeah. And this is up in New York as well, I believe.

Like I said, he puts the kids to bed. He goes to bed with his wife, and they get up the next day, and the wife and the kids are going to leave for three weeks and two days to Saratoga, New York, where she's going to go. I believe it's cooking. Yeah, she's going to cook for a family. For a family, for some event.

So they leave, and then Solomon meets Hamilton and Brown. They're introduced by a third party, and they're looking for talent for their production. I want to say it was like a kind of like a circus. I thought it was a circus too. Yeah.

Like a side show. It's basically like a music trio. Yeah.

That they're just going to hit up a couple of towns. Yeah. It's like a traveling. Traveling band. Musical festival kind of thing.

And they said they'll pay him really well plus expenses in DC. He takes the gig and that was a mistake. So. Doesn't tell anyone where he's going. No, because his family's already gone.

Yeah, he just goes with them. And this is like you can pick up a phone in 1841 and say, hey, I'm going to go to D.C. for three weeks.

If I don't come back, that's where you should start looking. Hamilton and Brown are celebrating with him after he's played and, you know, done a really good job. And they're at dinner and they're drinking.

And I want to say that they drugged him. I would guess so. Because I don't think. wine is just gonna get you're gonna get that drunk unless they showed he definitely got reviewed or whatever he had something and this would happen during like pirate right times too where they would either put something in your drink or they would get have people go out and scope people out and they would get you so drunk that you couldn't couldn't function couldn't function whatsoever and then you'd either wake up in it like on a ship and you were stuck or you were taken down south yeah sold into slavery good stuff So he's drugged and he wakes up the next day in a basement somewhere in chains and has no idea how he got there.

Doesn't have any idea what's going on. And I would be losing my shit at that point. He does.

I mean. Because I mean, I'm assuming he knows exactly what could happen to him. Right. You know, this isn't new territory. This is the 1840s.

Slavery's been around for a good. 200 years in this country. It's not uncommon knowledge. I do want to point out too that for this movie, I knew what it was going to be about going into it just based off the title.

I was kind of wondering about the transition of him being a freedman to him being a slave. I always try and like most viewers I feel like, you're thinking about what would you do if you were in that scenario exactly and this movie is so heart-wrenching even more so because everything that he does is exactly what i would have done exactly right you know i'm saying and i think that that's what beats you down into this movie even more so right so yeah it's it's horrible yeah so he wakes up again in chains has no idea what's going on He tries to communicate to these people that he's a freed man. And they're like, you are a Georgia runaway.

Yeah. You are a slave. And he goes, my name is Solomon Northup. And he goes, no it isn't.

And you're a slave. And you're from Georgia. And that's where you're going back to.

So get your head around it. And not only that. He still tries to push the issue. And then he catches a beating. An unmerciful beating.

Like with this board. And the dude. breaks the board over his back yeah hitting him so hard and then he switches to a leather strap to finish him off and i cannot imagine the pain that he endured i it sickens me that another human being could do it to another person it's just it's horrible just so bad so then let off and he lays there and i'm assuming passes out and they come back and another guy brings him some food and a new shirt And he tells them to take that one off and wear this one.

And he pulls it off and you see the back of it is just literally shredded. Yeah. Covered in blood.

It's raw. Like, oh, it was so bad. And he has the wherewithal to want to keep the shirt because his wife gave him the shirt.

And when they take it from him, he's like rags and tatters, rags and tatters. It's just garbage. You don't need it.

this is your new life now you don't forget about this you're never going back there right i would have lost it yeah yeah i'd have been screaming but that's just me but that would have led to another beating yeah it would it definitely would have led to another beating and i man how long can you keep that up yeah i couldn't do it and the whole time you're thinking too that he's already in the south you And the most heartbreaking thing is right after this scene, it pans out and you see our nation's capital. Right. Yeah.

In the background. So he hadn't even moved down south yet. Yeah.

He was just drugged and then pulled in some random person's house. Mm-hmm. So the next thing, they're washing up and it's a group of slaves and they're trying to get them cleaned up.

And here comes a boy, maybe eight, nine. At the most. And he's yelling for mama. Solomon's trying to tell him, shut up. Unless you want to catch a beating, I'd shut your mouth.

Right. This is what's going to happen here. And he kind of gets him to calm down a little bit.

And they all get washed up. So he starts talking to a few of the other slaves. And they're kind of discussing the situation.

And you can tell Solomon is educated. He is very articulate. He is a very. robust vocabulary oh yeah um he's no dummy talent talented human being yeah and a couple of the other ones are just as educated and they're they're trying to figure out okay what can we do uh to get out of this situation and it's it's just not going to happen you know they know that you know if they try they're just going to kill us right you know we're not worth anything to them if we're causing problems so They're leaving out, heading south.

They're being smuggled out on a wagon, and they're covered. And, you know, because it's kind of frowned upon up there in the north. You know, not real cool.

So, and they're effectively kidnapping somebody that is a freed person. They know that he's freed, and they just don't care, because they're going to get away with it. Yeah.

He doesn't have any... All for money. You don't have any rights anyway, you know.

Direct quote here is like, if you want to survive, say as little as possible. Tell no one who you really are and tell no one you can read unless you want to be a dead person. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's the cold, hard facts that you keep. You stick to the story. You're just going to pay for it.

Yeah. As long as they can give it to you. So they get to the boat and.

The three of the males or two of the other males and him are kind of trying to plot to see what they can maybe get away with to get off this boat. Maybe we could fight them or, you know, you know, one of them says we just need to survive for right now until we can find a better situation. One of the things, too, that I read up on is a lot of people that were taking by boat to the south. Not everybody made it because of the conditions underneath. And not only that, but if.

if they were to get loose or free, like free from their chains, many people would just jump off board because they knew that drowning or they thought that drowning would be a better outcome than what awaited them. Or then there's the possibility that you could get away if you could swim, obviously. And I don't think there's no way to stop those boats like they are today.

They're just heading down south on the river. It's like, I can't go back. So that one just got away. That's why you take more than what you need, I guess. Cover your losses, but so terrible.

So then a male comes down to the hold, and he's coming for Eliza, who's played by Adepero Uduye. And she has two children. And, of course, she's going to try to bargain with the guy, you know, do what you need to do with me, but leave my children alone.

And then another guy gets up to defend her, and he just gets stabbed. immediately without even thought and that's exactly what you know solomon was saying is like we have to survive here until we can do something about it so they just they stab him kill him and unceremoniously just wrap him up and throw him overboard and that's it that nothing is said just yeah get rid of it horrible yeah horrible so we uh we land at the port I'm assuming in Georgia. And one of the, the other one that survived with Solomon, his owner shows up and rescues him and gets him off the boats is that's my property. Here's the deed for him. He belongs to me.

And he goes, well, I don't know anything about this. He goes, yeah, I bet you don't. You're going to even my property back though.

Yeah. And he goes and Solomon's like, what about me? Tell him I'm a freed man.

And not a word is said. Yeah. And Solomon's just like, oh great this is awesome so we flash back uh to sol and being free they're looking they're shopping you know they're in town he's got his two children with his wife and they're gonna go looking for some stuff and she wants a bag for her trip And they go in and another slave owner has a slave with him and he sees Solomon and his family free. And he just doesn't understand.

Yeah. He doesn't get like, how are these people doing whatever the hell they want to do? And I'm stuck with this white dude. Yeah. And so he goes into the shop and the shop owner is treating Solomon like a normal person.

You know, not horrible. Right. Wanting to do business with him.

And. The slave comes in and he sees what's going on and the owner comes in and he gets that look of displeasure because the white shop owner is doing business with the black freed man and he's not too happy about it. So he grabs his slave and rolls out Jasper was his name and gives the disapproving looks.

And I'm like, man, you're just. terrible you're a terrible human being i already hate you so then we flash back to the the slave pen basically we're we're gonna sell the slaves and paul giamatti is taking role yeah calling out everybody's name and we get to solomon and he calls him out his name is platt and he goes your name's platt because my name is not platt and then he catches another beating your name's platt and you'll respond to that and that's it you're a slave and i'm gonna sell you yep so wrap your head around it um so then we do um basically showcasing the livestock probably 15 20 it's crazy it's crazy that it ever even happened i'm african americans they're all naked just standing there like cattle and people are coming in and perusing the the merchandise just dehumanizing to its core like i just it would just be awful i'm gonna say that probably a hundred more times how awful this is and i hope you don't get tired of it but i don't tell you so mr ford comes in played by benedict cumberbatch um and i love this dude i love benedict cumberbatch or anything he's just oh my god he's such a great actor he's just so good everything he's done i've loved so he's talking to Paul Giamatti's character, and I can't remember his name, save my soul, but he's like, so how much for Platt and Eliza? And he gives him the price and he goes, all right. And Eliza at this point is just losing her shit because she knows her family is about to get split up. And she's begging to whoever buys her to keep her children and she'll be the most faithful slave there ever was.

If you just let me keep my children. This was the first time that I cried in this movie. This was hard.

Very hard. If I could interject, the hard part about this is you've got this mom who has two children, a boy and a girl. The boy has just been ripped away from her before Benedict Cumberbatch came in. And sold. And sold.

He's gone. She knows she'll never see him again. So she has the younger daughter. And she's begging Benedict Cumberbatch, if you buy me, please buy my daughter. So Benedict Cumberbatch is like, how much for the little girl?

Oh, well, you can't afford that. He's like, well, what are you talking about? She's half the size of the mom.

And that's the same reasoning. This is the most disgusting thing in the entire movie, in my opinion, by the way. And they don't even say it. They don't have to.

Nope. Because you automatically know. That, oh, she's not going to be used for work. No.

Right. She's going to be a pleasure girl. Yep.

And he's like, you don't understand. She's worth more than anybody here. Yes. And that made me physically ill.

Yeah. That you, as a human being, could sell a little girl into that life. Yeah. And profit off of it. There isn't.

a sufficient level of hell for that person. No. There just isn't. I agree. It is the worst human experience ever.

Yeah. And it just, it made me sick. Yeah. Like, completely sick. And everybody, even Benedict Cumberbatch, everybody in that room knew exactly.

And Benedict Cumberbatch, Mr. Ford, he knew he couldn't afford her. Yeah. And he's like, I'm just going to take you. That's all I can do.

I'm taking you and Platt, and that's it. And then Eliza just breaks down accordingly. Just, ugh. And this is just the first 20 minutes. Yeah, this is the first 20-30 minutes of the movie.

So we get to the plantation, and Eliza is still distraught. And the mistress of the house tells her, Your children will soon be forgotten. And to the, I would have said, The hell they will.

You know. If I took your children from you, would you forget them at any time ever? No, you wouldn't. So I don't want to hear that. So now we meet a couple of other members of the cast at the plantation, Mr. Ford's plantation, Paul Dano, Mr. Tibbetts, the head carpenter.

Yeah. And he introduces himself and the overseer of the plantation, and you will refer to him as master, and you will refer to me as master. And then we get the patty roller song, which was awful. Yeah.

And if anybody doesn't know what a patty roller is, it's basically a slave hunting group of people. When you escape, they get a group of people together and they go hunting for you. And when they find you, bad things are usually going to happen. Yeah. You're probably just going to get hung on the spot.

Tortured. Or tortured. Beat.

You know. Dogs set on you. Hobbled.

So you can't run away again. So they have another name called Regulators. Yep.

And they were semi-official secret police who kept slaves in line in antepellum times. These groups also served the model for post-war terror society, the Ku Klux Klan. Yeah.

Great bunch of dudes. Yeah, so Tibbets is hammering it home that I'm in charge. and you're going to do what I say. You're going to toe the line, or bad things are going to happen.

And I have no qualms giving you all the bad things. He kind of takes pride in his cruelty, in my opinion. Yeah. Okay, so we're working.

It's basically like a logging operation at this point. And Solomon comes up with a great idea to transport the logs by water from where they're cutting them to the sawmill down river. And he's bringing his idea to Mr. Ford.

And Tibbetts is standing there just shitting all over his idea. And he says, are you a or are you an engineer? And he asked him three times.

And he goes, I have done. He lifts off his resume of all the stuff that he has worked on. It's impressive.

Like he knows what he's doing, obviously, because I can get this to work with minimal cost and you're going to make more money this way. You're going to have me and two other people could do this and everybody else could go do something else productive. Because otherwise they're having to log by hand those.

Yeah. Yeah. Just, you know, cart them back and it's a pain in the butt. So he comes up with the idea and Tibbetts, of course, hates it because it's not his idea. Tibbetts seems like a very educated man.

Oh, yeah. But I also, I don't know, I also feel like Tibbetts kind of gets pleasure out of seeing these guys do the manual labor of taking him back and forth. Oh, yeah.

Oh, definitely. If it makes it easier on these guys. Yeah. The more arduous the task is and the more physically demanding it is, the more demeaning it is, is exactly what you're going to be doing for him.

You hate Tibbetts. Yeah. You hate him.

I hate him. Almost as much as Epps. Almost.

I almost said Godzilla vs. King Kong. I was going to ask you about that. No, because there's a little bit of a redeeming quality with Godzilla vs. King Kong.

That's true. I'm just, I was joking. Tibbetts has no redeeming qualities. Trying to make it a little lighter.

Paul Dano or Mrs. Carmody from The Mist? Who do I hate more? Paul Dano. If you have a gun with one bullet in it, Lee. Oh, it's easy.

I'll stand it up next to each other and shoot him through the neck. Yeah. And then I'd beat him with a gun to make sure.

Yeah. That they're dead. No, but if I had to pick one of the two, it's going to be Tibbetts. Yeah.

That guy's just mean to be mean. He's a piece of shit. Yeah. Don't like him. So, as a reward of doing such a good job with the logging, Mr. Ford gives...

Solomon a violin. And he's kind of taken aback. Like, wow, I'm shocked that you've given me a personal item.

You know, you're not. Obviously not defending Ford. No. A slave owner.

Right. But he is the only decent one in the entire movie. If I was going to be a slave, I'd hope my master was like Ford. Right.

Not here to. Not a good person. No.

Kick the crap out of you. But the lesser of the evils. The lesser of all the evils. Yes. Still a slave owner.

Still bad. Right. But at least he's somewhat human.

Yeah, has... Some mercy. Some compassion.

Compassion. Yeah. So... Empathy. Yeah, right.

So, Eliza cries still, and Solomon is getting fed up, and he yells at her, and they debate. He does yell at her, yes. Like they debate. He's like, you know, master Ford is what a slave owner.

Yeah, yes, exactly. He's a slave owner. I was like, but it could be worse.

She was, let me weep for my children. And, uh, she just goes on and on and she's overheard by the mistress of the plantation and she's not having it. Uh, she's not going to be surrounded by that melancholy.

Right. So you get rid of her. And that's what Ford does.

And to me, One thing I didn't like about his character is he didn't have much of a backbone. Not at all. No balls. Yeah.

He folded rather quickly on that. And then he folds again rather quickly. In one of the best scenes in the movie? Yeah. So the next scene, Solomon's working on some sort of building with Tibbets.

I don't know. It's the best scene in the entire movie. And Tibbets is riding him. make them boards flush now make them boards flush i did you did not they are not flush pull them off and redo them that's not flush so eliza gets the boot um it kind of shows her backstory and she was a slave to another owner who was in love with her and had children with her or the the daughter was the the slave owner's child and he promised her freedom And that, you know, I'm going to make you free and you're going to be my wife and blah, blah, blah. Well, then the slave owner dies and his children are like, yeah, get rid of those.

Right. And she sells them off to where she ends up now. And it's just, it's, it's awful. You know, they, they get passed around. Like they're just an afterthought.

Like, oh, I can't have you around. I'm not going to be looking at you. And it's like, literally, like she said, she sold her flesh and blood.

Yeah. That is her sister. that she half sister that you're selling yeah and it disgusting just terrible yeah so we we cut back to the building that solomon's working on and he says he um did as instructed and if there's something wrong then it's it's wrong with the instruction itself yeah tibbets did not like hearing that at all not even a little bit you He goes, I told you to do this.

I told you to procure a keg of nails. He goes, I got them right here. He goes, boy, you're just full of answers, ain't you? And just starts whipping him. And it didn't go so well for Mr. Tibbetts.

No, it did not. Because Solomon decides, yeah, I'm not going to take this from you. And whips him back.

Oh, yeah. He beats the shit out of him. Which I thought was inadvisable. No, I agree. But it is very satisfying.

It's very satisfying. But it is, again, inadvisable. Not just this movie, but any time that...

Paul Dano's in a movie, and he gets his butt whipped. He plays such a good weasel. He does.

He really does. He was the best Riddler, though. I'll tell you this.

I love him as the Riddler. I'll tell you this. I felt bad for him in Prisoners. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because Hugh Jackman went to work on that dude. Yeah, he did. He plays such a good no-backbone weasel.

He's so good at it. He's a strong man. Oh, he's so good at it.

Yeah, there will be blood. Love it. Again, another time. No, that is definitely another time.

So Solomon beats him, and he gets away. He whips the shit out of him. He whips the shit out of him, and then finally he gets away from him, and you're going to pay for that. Yeah. And you know.

You're like, yee, watching it. Bruh. Yeah.

You know what you just did. They're not going to overlook that. Yeah. It's not just going to be swept under the rug.

No. So Paul Dana goes. and gets a couple of guys and they come and get him and they string him up.

Rope around his neck, over the tree. They raise him up to where his tiptoes are touching the ground. And the overseer comes back, finally.

And it's not that quick either. No. It's like a full two or three minutes.

Yeah, it starts getting dark. It was hours. Yeah, it was hours for him. But as far as watching him on screen, It's a full, like, two or three minutes, and it takes forever.

Yeah, they let you watch it. So before he gets strung up, like, the Overseer comes back and says, You sit here. I'm going to go get Mr. uh ford but if you run i can't protect you so you stay right here yeah and so he leaves and then paul dano and his buddies come back and string him up yeah and at the time they're stringing him up like i said he's he's tiptoes only the overseer comes back and tells him like look you are gonna get out of here this is mr ford's property and if you kill it he still owes for this this slave right so you They leave and Tibbetts is still mad. He's like, you got no cause. I do.

It's his property, not yours. I'll do what I want. And then the overseer just leaves him there. And I'm like, bruh, you could have cut him down.

I mean, he could still die. He made a point. What if he passes out?

Yeah, that's crazy. That whole scene is crazy. I didn't understand it.

I was like, you should have cut him down. Yeah. Maybe tied him up and put him in a hot box or something.

But I don't know. That was hard. I didn't understand it. But it's bad. So finally, Mr. Ford comes home, cuts him down.

And it's dark. Yeah, it's dark now. So this happened in the morning. The beating happened in the morning.

And it's dark. So he's been there all goddamn day. All day, yeah. And somebody does come up and give him some water at some point.

one of the other slaves comes and brings him a sip of water. And I'm like, wow, don't go all out. Yeah. You know?

So he cuts them down, brings them in the house and he's laying down on the floor and he's getting his shotgun. And look, I, I don't know what I'm going to do. If they show up in numbers, we're screwed.

They're going to get you. And I am not gonna be able to stop them. So I'm going to have to sell you to somebody else. Now you're not going to like it.

He has a reputation for being extremely strict. Yeah. and brutal with his sleigh psychotic yeah uh but at least you're gonna be alive so he ships him off to mr epps played by michael fosbender and kills this role yeah he does this so good i have not hated a character as much as i hate this guy in a very long he's crazy long time he's an alcoholic he has no redeeming qualities none whatsoever funny you brought up that he was an alcoholic because he had his makeup artist paint his mustache on with alcohol with like a lot of alcohol so that the other actors around him could smell the alcohol on him and react naturally to that smell so oh yeah god it was just so bad so bad i love method actors yeah Oh, so Epps is just a great guy.

Let me tell you, let me tell you, he uses the Bible to justify beating the shit out of his slaves. Yeah. And I, it's so bad for, for anybody to use that book in that way.

You know, I don't. prescribed to that stuff years yeah unfortunately yeah i don't prescribe to that stuff or subscribe to it but i don't i really don't think it's supposed to be used like that no no at all no uh but and again you know people are going to twist everything they can yeah uh so he's a great guy so it's a cotton plantation down here and we're gonna pick cotton and every day we're gonna weigh everybody's progress how much did you how much did you do how much what's the quota you know a good slave will pick you know 200 pounds a day easily right and if you don't make your numbers from the day before you get pulled out and you get beat it's got to keep production up but i don't know so you got to make your you got to make your numbers and then patsy i don't know if you've ever weighed cotton but i don't weigh much you they don't weigh much yeah yeah for you to pick 200 pounds of cotton in a day of course i'm assuming that day is probably 14 to 16 hours long was it 200 or was that just lapidium nyongos no no lapidium nyonga wasn't even near 200 right she was 500 pounds oh yeah she picks with mo vega yeah yeah finish it right uh so patsy is the hot shot she picks cotton like nobody's business and she has favor of Mr. Epps in ways that nobody wants it, obviously. It's just. But just like any good worker, you've got to keep them numbers up.

Yep. You've got to keep them numbers up. If you don't, you'll get whipped.

So we're done with picking cotton and Patsy's out here making corn husk dolls. Oh, man. Really good work.

They look great. She's had a lot of practice. Yeah. So she's trying to make some sort of happiness in this dismal situation. Yeah.

The next scene, Epps is drunk. Shocker. Yeah.

Middle of the night. This becomes a big shocker. Yeah. He gets all the slaves up, and we're going to have a party.

We're going to dance. He does have a party, though. You know? And he's got Epps, or he's got Solomon playing the fiddle, and everybody's just having a great time. You can see it on their faces.

I mean, even Solomon. What are you doing? When he's playing the fiddle, he's nothing behind his eyes. No.

He's... dead yeah yeah well you got to think about you know they worked probably like i said 12 14 16 hours that day and he got him up in the middle of the night and guess what they got to do in the morning again get up and pick more fucking cotton yeah yeah so they're all just like like dead inside they're like so exhausted but he's got him out here dancing and having a good time and just not great so then you The mistress Epps comes down because he's making all this noise and she's not happy about it. And she throws a whiskey decanter and hits Patsy in the face.

Listen, she really kills this character. She does good too. Like, I don't know who to hate more.

They're equally insane. I don't know who to hate more. I don't know who to hate more.

I want to hate her more because at least she's not drunk. Yeah. She's just spiteful to be spiteful. Jealous. Yeah.

Because she knows. Putting it to Patsy. Yeah.

You know, in the middle of the night. He has a lust for Patsy. Yeah.

Not like Patsy's putting on any advances towards him either. Right. You know what I mean?

She's just trying to get through her day. Yeah. You know, be unseen.

Unseen, yeah. But, you know, pick 500 pounds of cotton and you're going to get a good hard look. Yeah. And then she demands that Epps sells her.

Yeah. You get rid of her. And he goes, I will get rid of you before I part with Patsy.

It ain't gonna happen. So wrap your head around it, Darby. Damn.

Yeah. Can't take that production hit. Mm-hmm.

Can't have it. so we're out picking more cotton fun just showing their day-to-day life of how miserable it is and out in the heat and i don't know not just heat but georgia heat yeah georgia heat and i don't know if you if you know what picking cotton entails oh it's painful it's painful it's extremely painful and poke you yeah your fingers just turn into hamburger after a while so um it's just bad so miss epps sends plat on an errand she wants him to go to the store to pick up some items um she gives him a little little medallion which is basically like a hall pass it says yeah i i they know where i am i'm on an errand yeah so don't mess with me but you still gotta you gotta still mind your business right keep your head on a swivel because nobody cares about you so he's he's walking along and and he's coming back and he he rolls up on patty rollers and they've caught some runaways and they're they're just gonna hang them Right then and there. More confirmation that you can't just leave.

Yeah. You have some freedom, but you're not getting away. Right. Not here. You're a black face, and all black faces are accounted for in this area.

Yeah. So getting out of here is not going to be easy. And these dogs are trained to find you.

Yeah. You're not getting away. Yeah.

So the tree. where Solomon sees those guys being lynched was actually used for lynching and is surrounded by the graves of several slaves. Damn. That's awful. Yeah.

Ugh. Man, I don't know how to feel about that. Right.

I mean, why film there? Well... I know, I know, but I'm just saying, why?

Man. Yeah. That would be unnerving to me. Yeah. Like, having to act on that, in that area, would just feel...

Dude. disrespectful to me i would i would hope that like for the actors sake that they didn't tell them until after yeah but if if there's graves there i'm sure everyone knew yeah because they would have had to have been the they scout locations for but they would have had to been respectful yeah you know what i mean so they wouldn't want them to be disrespectful in the area right so everyone should have known imagine you didn't tell them and the guy just like hey i gotta I got to take a piss. Yeah. And he goes over and, you know, pisses on a rock.

Yeah, that's actually the slave that died here 300 years ago. Yeah. That's his grave, and you just pissed on it.

Yeah. Dumb, dumb. Anyway, so we've got some, just to comment on the cinematography of this thing, which is shot beautifully.

They've got some great shots of these mangroves, and it's just really an interesting location. I'm not sure I'd want to live there, but I could visit. Solomon has got to retrieve Patsy from Mr. Ford. She is at the Shaw's.

I'm sorry, the Shaw's. The Shaw's, again, another plantation owned by a white guy, but his wife is a black slave. I don't know if she's freed or if she's just worked her way up to that. Yeah, I don't know, but she's enjoying his favor, obviously.

She doesn't have to work in the field ever. And she gets to sit at the nice table and eat the fancy foods and be taken care of. She's dressed.

It's the best situation you could think of. And dressed normal. In that crappy life. At least she's not being worked to death. So Epps is not a fan of the Shaw's at all.

I'm assuming for that reason alone. Yeah. And he wants Patsy back now.

Yeah. And he's drunk. So get her back here.

Because I got plans for her. obviously he brings her back and epps tries to stab solomon yeah and he's kind of playing cat and mouse with him trying he is right away you know he gets between him and the tree and they just kind of go around and around and he jumps into the pig pen and slips and falls and he kind of gives up after that and not a good look for mr epps but you know what you can do when you're that drunk it's it's nighttime and epps is coming for patsy gonna have a little late night rendezvous he rapes her and you can just see in her face she just checks out yeah she just out there she dissociates and just lets him finish and he he starts choking her at the same time because as much as he loves her he still hates black people right so just no respect for their life whatsoever you're my property and i'll just do whatever i want with you and if i want to kill you i will no big deal you get over it Oh, just. Yeah. I think that he hates that he loves her. Right.

Yeah. He hates it. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

But he doesn't understand. But he knows that his wife doesn't love him. No. Because he's a drunk and an asshole.

Right. And she's just as much of an asshole as he is. Right. So it's it's just bad for everybody. So then Solomon gets sent out on another errand to the store.

And this time he. stashes some paper because he's gonna i'm assuming write a note at this point in time we don't know how he's gonna accomplish it and mail a letter he's gonna try to write a letter and send it send it home or something uh so now we we do dinner and dancing again and another drunken party but this time the mistress is like handing out treats to everybody except patsy you ain't getting nothing yeah she challenges epps on Patsy again, and she comes over and scratches her face. Just...

Just cruel. Just cruel. You know? Before they did a lot of their brutal scenes together, Peter Nyong'o and Michael Fassbender performed a ritual of making nice with each other.

According to Nyong'o, we wouldn't say anything to each other, we'd just look each other in the eyes and grasp our hands. Our characters were in such opposition, but we as actors needed each other in order to be able to... To go the distance of portraying that scene. I don't know how they did it.

Right. I don't know. I couldn't do it. There's no way in the world.

I don't care how good an actor I was. I couldn't act in that situation and treat somebody that way. Right. I just couldn't do it.

Well, even though it's horrible, and I think even though Michael Fassbender, like everybody, anybody that watches this movie will be like, that guy. That guy. But it's important. It's important for people to know. It's extremely important for people to know.

And I think it's extremely important that he. I'm wondering how many people have come up to him. I mean, think about it. That guy in real life.

That's what his memory is. There's probably hundreds of those. I know.

But that guy in particular, a drunk, that treated people like that. That's his memory. That's his legacy.

Yeah. Right. That everyone who is ever going to hear about him, see this movie, is going to hate him with all of their soul. Good. Yeah.

Good. That's what I'm saying. Exactly good. And that's what I think Michael Fassbender is like.

Yeah. People need to know. Yeah.

This. Piece of shit. Right.

Yeah. And again, uh, evil of all evil. So much props and kudos to Fassbender for being able to pull this off. I agree. And still have a soul.

Yeah, I agree. I don't know how I don't eat you alive. I would, I would have an extremely long conversation with him about this. Just like, tell me how you got through this every day.

Right. Because it's gotta be just crippling your soul. Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, just, Can't feel good. No. No. So now it's nighttime and Patsy wakes up Solomon and asks him for a favor. You know, I want you to kill me because I can't do this anymore.

You'll be doing me a mercy. And he's like, I'm not going to do it. You can't ask me to do this. I can't live with that.

It's like, this is damnation we're talking about. And she's like, it's not damnation. It's a mercy. God will favor you for this. And that's how bad it is when you are in that situation and you're going to beg another human being to kill you because you can't do it.

I can't imagine being that hopeless. I just can't. I can't fathom it either. And not even like. I've been hopeless in my life.

I'll admit that. Yeah. Every day.

I struggle with a lot of stuff, but not like that. That's a new low. That's a level of hopelessness and just utter defeat and bleak. I can't even think about it. It's so bad.

And not even in a fast, not talking about suicide in a good way, but she's asking him to just go drown me. Right. Because that's going to be better than what I have to endure every day.

For the rest of my life. right and she she may have been what 20 something probably not even that yeah it's probably 18 19 in in this in the in the story yeah if not younger you you're gonna work for the next 70 years well if that who knows i mean because you didn't know in 1841 that in 20 you know 22 23 years we're gonna abolish slavery right but it don't get any better after that okay you probably didn't even think it'd be possible no yeah because all your reality is there's no education no they don't educate them on anything oh no they don't know about the north you know what i mean they don't get to read no and it's not and even though like reading is seen as like oh you know how to read like a disc because they didn't want them like the best way to subjugate somebody is to not give them as no education yeah they don't know any better yeah can't read in a book how great life could be right This is your lot in life. The cotton worms find the Epps Plantation.

And of course, it's the slaves'fault. They brought this evil upon them with their wicked ways. And so I've got to send you off somewhere because there's nothing for you to do here. So he loans out his slaves to the judge, Judge Turner, for the season.

And this is where the sugar cane comes in. They're going to go to this plantation. and cut sugar cane for this guy.

And this is when he comes up with the idea of the berries, and he makes a stylus to write a letter. Ink. Yeah, ink. Using the berries as ink.

And he's got his paper. This is back to the beginning of the movie. Right. So the judge questions Solomon about his musical talent and says that got you a gig to play for my anniversary, and whatever you make, you can keep, which is unheard of. Right.

I was shocked. They return from... the turner plantation and they do not look very enthused uh they're walking back and epps stops him and starts questioning him and he's heard stories already about what solomon has done did you beguile him with your slick ways right i'm like dude you're just ready to pick a fight with this dude yeah you're already mad at him for making him look stupid you in the pig pen yeah and not being able to catch him so it's just it's only a matter of time before it comes down to it patsy is gone again she's at the shaw's and solomon can't find her he does find her and they come back patsy's gonna take a beating because she ran off to the shaw's with you know you i know what you're doing over there blah blah blah and she's i want to get soap and she shows him a little bar soap because i stink i I make myself sick. I need to wash myself up.

And I went to get soap. You won't even give me soap. And so he's like, he's getting mad.

I don't believe your lies. Epps, you're going to beat her. And Epps is like, no, I'm not.

And she's like, I'd rather it be you than him. More awfulness. Man, that scene is so hard.

Yeah, this is the hardest scene in the movie. The hardest scene to freaking watch. Because I'll tell you what, there's not...

You feel defeated. He feels defeated. She feels defeated.

I'm saying you as in the audience. You feel defeated. There's not a lot of visual effects in this movie. But the visual effects on this part... The mist.

yeah just and the sores that like it shows her skin opening up when he so pd nyongo said in reference to the scene that it was all about the crack of the whip you hear it you feel it i felt the wind of it every single time. I didn't need much more. That was one technical thing, and it definitely took some finessing because obviously I can't see what's happening. I can't see the whip. I can only react to the sound of a whip.

Yeah, it was hard, but that day was as real as it could have possibly been for me because in preparing for it, all I could do was be present. Dang. That is a mind scrambler. Hints Oscar.

Right? Dang, man. That is crazy.

So Solomon takes the whip and just starts kind of pantomiming, as the mistress says. Yeah. He's like, he's not putting anything to that.

And he's like, you got to hit her. Hit her harder. So he does. He hits her a little bit harder and a little bit harder. And then Epps finally gets fed up and takes the whip from her and gives it all.

He gave her every bit of that whip and just turned her back. How she survived it. I don't know.

I don't know how she stayed conscious for as long as she did. No. Because I know she passed out. But the pain. For weeks, you're going to feel that.

Oh, yeah. If not months. You know?

Because it's going to rip your muscles. What kind of medical care are you going to get? None. They had some salve they were putting on that thing.

Right. They obviously knew something to put on it. They had to, you know what I mean?

Gotta have some sort of remedies. Something. Homemade remedies. I mean, he just literally just beat her unmerciful.

Yeah. The only other beating I've seen worse in a movie would have been The Passion of the Christ. Yeah. And those things are neck and neck. I think The Passion of the Christ was...

was worse yeah but this was pretty friggin bad yeah i just it was extremely hard to watch yeah so they bring her inside and they try to kind of patch her up the best they can she's like screaming just you know i can't can't imagine just can't yeah so next scene we've got a new a new member to the crew uh arms be white guy oh bastard another Mmm, upstanding human being. And it's at this point in the movie, too, where you're thinking, I've seen the worst of it. Right? What else is left? He has, and like, I don't know about...

He is the shining light. Yeah. That's what you... You think there's hope.

He's hope. We're in spoilers, but when you watched this for the first time, did you know how it was going to end? No. Wait, the movie? Yeah, the movie or the story overall?

No. No? I did not.

I knew going into it that he was going to make his way back to his family. Right. I was seeing this as like-This is it. This is it.

We got through the rough shit. Yeah. We're in the clear.

This is how it- ends. You know what I'm saying? When I first watched this movie, I was like, well, he could die, but then I was like, then how'd the story get out?

How'd he write his memoir? How'd he write his memoir if he didn't get free? So I was like, well, this could be it. He seems like he could be, but and, you know, I know it's not always the case every every role is different but this guy Dillahunt never plays a stand-up guy yeah no yeah never no like everything he's been in except for the tv show he was in I can't think of the name of it it was a comedy he he's a bad guy yeah even played a terminator yeah whatever so he shows up we're doing the weigh-ins at picking cotton and he doesn't even get 100 pounds yeah but he's white so i'm past you get a pass you know just work on it guy you'd be all right no big deal no big deal guess who does get a beating good old solomon because he didn't make his quota from the day before so he's going to take a beating arms b tells us a story that He was an overseer on a plantation and could not stay off the bottle.

Because if you put the whip to another human being for long enough, you're going to need some sort of therapy. Yeah. And that's where he found it was in the bottle.

And he couldn't keep his work up and ended up in debt. And he's trying to work it off here on the Epps plantation. So Solomon, for some reason, trusts Armsby.

and asks him to mail a letter for him. And he's got his coin that he earned from his fiddle playing. He says, if you mail this letter, you can have this. It's everything I have. He goes, but if you can't do it, I need you to shut your mouth about it because it could get me killed, obviously.

And he's like, okay, I'll do it, and I'm not going to do whatever. I'm going to take your coin, but I'm not going to rat you out, and I'll mail you a letter. Well, that was a lie. He rats him out instantly and Epps comes and finds Solomon in the middle of the night and somehow Solomon convinces Epps that Armsby's lying because he wants him to make him overseer.

He tells him he's just he's a drunk he's lying he's playing you I would never do anything like that right that's crazy talk and he bought it. I don't know how, but he bought it. And I'm like, you just dodged the bullet of all bullets right there because you were a dead man if you didn't convince him. You were going to die right then and there. And I just, okay, all right.

So we're back out in the field, and it's hot. It's so hot. It's so hot, and they're picking cotton. And I can't remember his name, but they called him Uncle Something. He just falls out dead from heat, just dies right then and there.

Supervisors comes over and starts beating him. They try to get him to get up. He's like, no, that guy's dead. He's off for the rest of, you know, ever. So they have a little funeral and they start singing.

And Solomon is just kind of really facing that this is going to be my life. He starts singing. Yeah. And he's got to try to find some solace, you know, some sort of.

Peace. Peace to reconcile. Acceptance. Acceptance of his fate. And then Mr. Bass shows up, played by Brad Pitt.

God bless Mr. Bass. Thank you. And this is when I was like, all right. This is it.

This is it. Yeah. I was like, man, I really hope they don't make Brad Pitt play a bad character.

Right? Yeah. I really like Brad Pitt.

I've never seen Brad Pitt play a bad guy. No. Ever.

That I know of. No. It's weird.

I really like Brad Pitt. So. he's questioning epps on the condition of his slaves he's like it's my property i do what i want with him he's like yeah you you don't really own them just fyi yeah and he tries to kick some knowledge to him and he's not having that you know at all he goes you really like hearing yourself talk don't you never met a man that likes hearing something talk more than you do and i'm like okay well he's a free white man talking to another free white man so Yeah. You know?

Yeah. He's just mouthy, and I love it. Right?

Yep. And he's still getting paid. Patsy took the beat, and that's not when she got the soap. Epps can't find her again, and she went to the Shaw's to get the soap.

And this is when Solomon beats her. Just, yeah. And then Epps takes over, like I said.

And at the end of that, her back looks like roadkill. I wrote that down, and that's exactly what it looked like. Like, you scraped that off the... Siler Highway.

Yep. Yeah. And that, I think, is when Solomon is finally broken.

Yeah. With this place. He takes the violin and just smashes it.

Yeah. Burns it. It's just... Defeating. It's so heartbreaking.

Yeah. Because, you know, it's one of his... The only things that would have brought him any joy.

And he's just given up. So, Solomon tells Bass what happened to him. And... Bass promises secrecy, and he's asking him to send a letter to help him. And Bass is hesitant.

Oh, yeah. He's like, you are asking a lot. You know what could happen to me.

I'm not American, for one thing. I'm Canadian, and that's not going to save me. If I get caught, I'm as dead as you are. Yeah.

And it's... But he agrees. But he says, it's my duty to help you.

Oh, Mr. Bass. Just... Amazing. So the next scene, a horse and carriage shows up with three people, one of them being the county sheriff.

And he's looking for. And his lawyer. Yeah.

Well, the sheriff, the lawyer, and then the guy that ran the shop in New York. Right. That knows him.

Right. So they show up and they call him out. Like, are you Solomon Northup?

He's like, yes, I am. And he's all right. Well, you're coming with us. And then Epps comes out and he's like, where are you going with my property? That's mine.

He's bought and paid for. I own him. He's like, you do not.

He's a freed man. No, he's not. He's here. He's my slave. And they take him anyway.

Yeah. And he starts chasing him. And that's when they're having that discussion. Yeah, he's on horse.

Didn't even know what's going on behind. Right. And then Patsy is standing there watching him leave. And in the book, that's the last time he ever saw Patsy.

Isn't that crazy? It's terrible. Poe Patsy. Yeah.

The entire time. I felt the worst for that woman. Just terrible.

He's got to leave her behind. I just hate that he had to leave her. And then this is the part where I lost my shit.

He gets home and... Sees his family, and he apologizes to them for being gone. And he's gray-haired now, and...

That 12 years put 50 years on the line. Oh, yeah. And he's crippled, basically.

Yeah. He has a limp, and... But the reuniting with his family was just...

amazing his grandson it's rough it is rough and again he's apologizing you don't even feel satisfied that's no you don't you do not feel satisfied at all you feel worse because look at what he's missed the only time you ever feel satisfied in this movie is when he beats the crap out of tibbets yeah that's it that's the only time in the movie that you're like yeah right the rest of it you're like yeah so you know they embrace and fade to black, and then they tell you about how he used this experience. He wrote the book to educate, became part of the Underground Railroad, and then mysteriously died. They don't know how it happened.

I'm going to assume he was murdered. Probably. Also, he took men that kidnapped him to court. And lost.

And lost. Because you don't have any rights. Well, you don't have any rights.

You're a black man. You can't sue a white man. in the story. See, I thought that it was that he didn't have proof because he is a free man. No, you don't have any rights.

Even though you're free, you still don't have any rights. You can't vote. You can't do this.

You can't do that. So just go on about your business and then roll credits. Roll credits. Yeah.

Beautiful, fantastic, horrifying movie. Extremely horrifying. It really is. I mean, it's horrifying, but everyone should watch it because this shit happened to human beings in our country. Stop.

Stop. Trying to say it didn't happen. Or not talking about it. Right. Less than 200 years ago.

Yeah. Less than 200 years ago. Yeah.

Disgusting. It's disgusting. And again, I hate white people.

I hate white people. I've said that like four times watching movies. I looked at my wife. I've said it four or five times on this podcast alone.

I hate white people. Remember the Titans? It's always sweaty white people.

Right? It's like, come on. Nasty asses. Why can't you just be a human being? Right.

How hard is it? Well, I mean, how can you be that like... Obtuse. I mean...

I know that you're brought up in that, right? Right. It's taught.

But how can you not have your own thoughts like this can't? Man, this don't feel right. Right. You know what I mean? Because you had Mr. Bass who obviously was like...

Educated. Yeah, this is not... Educated.

How educated do you think Epps was? Not. He fell into that money.

Yeah. He fell into the farm. Right. I think it was...

Was it her farm? It was her dad's. Yeah, her dad's farm.

So he married into it. Yeah. Yeah. So just... The South was a whole bunch of uneducated idiots.

Well, that's a little broad. Even the judge. Think about it, though. I mean, I don't know what else to say about it besides wow. Yeah.

Fantastic movie. Fantastic. Yeah. Unbelievably good.

So, Lee, explain our ratings. Our rating system is as follows. We have an S through F, S being the pinnacle of filmmaking.

In our opinion, and that is our opinion, so don't come at us. Right. We only have 10 slots for the podcast for S-Class movies.

If we get to 11, one's got to fall off. We have to make that decision. I think we got some time. Since we only have two, The Way Way Back and The Exorcist. So watch those movies.

Again, they're great. And then we have A, which is near perfection. Great movie. Very little to complain about.

B, pretty good. here and there not great c your average movie uh d crap that's just not good you can watch it but it's it's not gonna be good and then f which is not watchable just Garbage. Garbage. Don't watch it.

Find something else to do. Read a book. Right. Read this book.

Yeah. So, having said that, I give this movie an A. Okay.

Beautifully acted. Yeah. Powerful, powerful performances. Extremely delicate subject matter that, again, needs to be told.

All the time. It should be a refresher. All the time.

Watch this movie. This is how terrible we were. This is how evil we were. We don't have to be that way anymore. Not all of us, but like...

No. As a species. Yeah. This is what we did to each other.

As humanity, yeah. This is how low some of us could go. In my opinion, this is the lowest form of American existence.

Yeah. as a country this was humanity i mean i know there's holocaust and stuff but i'm saying that's the only one that i'm gonna i'm gonna put up against it right but this was hundreds of years worth of this right this is a this is a higher death toll children you know i mean like being used as sex items and but the holocaust was extermination yeah yeah there was no you might work this i don't i don't i'm just gonna not compare them they're both just terrible they're horrible yeah yeah equally horrible yeah right on different spectrums yes but the worst part we're both it is the worst part of american history in my opinion oh just for sure the blackest yeah and for for anyone to ever try to whitewash this put a positive spin on it anything like that is unacceptable it's deplorable it is uneducated uneducated it is evil It is heartless, soulless, and you really need to take a look in the mirror of who you are. But if they feel that way, it doesn't matter. No. People are just crap sometimes.

They are. But I'm going to judge you for it. Just know that. Yeah.

And I'm a nobody. So again, great movie. So A. A for me.

I just want to highlight Lupito Nyong'o's performance. One of the best performances I've ever seen anyone act. in ever like i i don't know what she could have done to do that better at all i agree what do you think keeps it from being an s i can tell you my reason but go for it my reason for an s is it's just it's a little overly brutal okay but again it needs it yeah but it's so off-putting in it that it just it makes you really feel yeah awful yeah and not just for the person that it's happening to, what kind of person could do that to another human being?

Yeah. I don't want to imagine that person. Right. I don't want to be in the same room with somebody like that ever. And to give it an S to me, it's just, I don't, I don't, I don't think I can.

Yeah. Okay. So I'm with you on everything. You said everything I'm going a plus.

The only reason why I can't give it an S and this is. Just me is rewatchability. Okay.

I'll never watch this movie again. I don't think I could unless I'm educating someone on it. I just, I don't think I could set through it again. That's how brutal and honest this movie was.

I own this movie. It's worth buying. And I watch it.

I don't think I'll ever buy it. I watch it every couple of years. I don't know, man.

I don't think I can. Because I just, again. And here's the deal. I won't turn it off. Right.

Like, I'll watch it. But I'm not going to seek it out. And that's the only reason why I'm not giving it an S.

Right. Not the quality of the movie, not the acting, not the story, not anything about the movie. It's just the watchability.

And that comes to also the heart-wrenching violence, the over-the-top. The inhumanity. The inhumanity of it. I know who I am, and I don't want to subjugate myself to that again.

I know how terrible these people are. How many times am I going to say I hate people on this podcast and their ability to do bad things? I know I'll never do anything like that.

So I'm just like, I got it. I want even my kids to watch this movie when they're old enough. Right.

I think my wife needs to watch it, but I wouldn't have them watch it twice. Right. I rewatch it because, again, it's so powerful. Yeah, man.

It totally is. I agree. But it's powerful enough to last for me.

I'll remember forever. I don't know if I feel bad about this. I kind of do because I like watching it because it is so...

emotionally provocative for me. I will put myself through horrible things just so I can feel it. Yeah. It's doing its job. Yeah.

You have to feel these horrible things to keep that in check, in my opinion. And if you can't look at these things all the time, it's coming back. It's already starting to come back. I can't say that I love this movie because I love everything about it.

about the movie like the film the acting that but i can't say that i love that story that story is Freaking heartbreaking and terrible. It is. I don't love that.

I just love that it will educate people. I like the fact that he did get out. Oh, me too.

That is the best part. Thank you for that, Ray, tiny speck of hope. And again, like I've said several times on the podcast, if you have a high hope factor in your movie, I'm going to gravitate towards it.

Right. And... You never really see Solomon just utterly give up. He comes close. He comes real close.

With the violin, I thought he was done. And the singing at the funeral. Yeah.

He is on the edge, on his tiptoes on the edge. One more thing. I think one more thing. And Mr. Bass showed up.

One more thing. But I think that's why he said. I think that's why he told Mr. Bass. He was like, I mean, I got nothing to lose now.

Right. The difference doesn't make. And he grew the trust and the way Mr. Bass talked. Yeah, because you overheard him talking to-Educated, yeah. To Fs about how he feels about slavery.

This is literally my chance. And he even like shakes his head. He's like, I don't know if I can tell you.

It's like if anybody is going to help me-Because Mr. Bass is like, this man seems super educated. This guy like him is never coming back around. But Mr. Bass, the way he talks, he's like, what have you done?

Like, why do you talk the way you talk? Yeah, you are very educated. Very educated man. You know what you're doing. You're not some little.

You're not a slave. Unfortunately, I'm uneducated. Yeah, you weren't born a slave. Yeah. All right, you.

Sorry. No, you're good. So I also was going to give it an A plus.

And my reasoning for not being an S is that I didn't like the. And again, it's personal preference. Yeah.

I didn't like the abruptness that the movie came to ending. You know what I'm saying? And I understand why the director chose that.

But for me personally, I didn't like the abruptness of just, okay, you just went through all this awful shit. It beats the hell out of you. Yeah. And then it's, all right, now we're done. Obviously, if they're going for historical accuracy, you're not going to see the Django Unchained version of this movie where...

She had told IG a Ford goes back and then fucking murders everybody and then rides off on a horse with Patty and saves her. You're not going to get that. No, but I did immediately look up what happened to Pat Patsy though. I immediately loved it. I know.

I just immediately was like, what happened? And that was the last time I ever saw her. I'm like, man, I can't imagine what happened to her. Right. I don't want to.

I don't either. Overall, what? A plus? A plus.

I say A plus. I say A plus. All right.

Well, Lee, thanks for taking us through that movie. No problem, guys. I come with the heavy stuff. I come with the heavy stuff. Well, I guess I'm glad we started with the other one.

All right. Yeah. That was rough. Boy in Striped Pajamas coming up next.

Nope. Nope. I haven't seen it. A couple months.

No. I haven't seen it. A couple months. All right.

All right. Thanks for joining us. I'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

Hello and welcome to the Postcast. Just wanted to say a special thanks to Lee for going through that hard movie with us. Happy Easter to all those who celebrate. And I wanted to say thank you to all our loyal and new listeners.

We invite you all to check out our Facebook group. If you're listening on YouTube, give us a like and follow us wherever podcasts are found. Look for our next episode Monday, April 8th as we review Glory Road. We hope you've enjoyed our program just as much as we did recording for you. Thank you and stay tuned for our next episode.

Transcript for:Podcast Review: 12 Years a Slave

Transcript for:
Podcast Review: 12 Years a Slave