We decided to see "12 Years a Slave" after it won the Academy's Best Picture award. I cannot express how disappointed we were. Neither the directing, the acting, nor the story itself were even close to Best Picture quality. It was slow, wooden and full of clichés. Chiwetel Ejiofor's acting was nothing special; I got tired of his perpetually pained expression filling the screen. Why didn't he age or grow thinner? Did they have to portray all slave owners as sadistic? And that final scene was so painfully stiff and staged it seemed as though the director and screen writer just ran out of energy. We were just glad to see it end! Clearly this weak film was honored for political reasons, not artistic. Shame on the Academy.