He's 100% right on that first point. I'm kind of sick of slaves, servants, civil rights, woe is me movies too. And if you're going to give me a slave movie, do something different for a change like a Toussaint Louverture biopic. I give 12 Years a Slave a pass though, because it's an absolute travesty that its the first slave film by a Black director. Sometime's cultural perspective from a creative standpoint is incredibly important.
That's why I was excited for that Will Smith movie announced years ago about Taharqa, a Nubian Pharaoh of Egypt. Hell, it doesn't even have to have black people in it, give me a fucking non-Moses or Cleopatra movie on Egypt (sans white people in bronzer please) and I'll be happy. The Hollywood notion that non-white culture's interesting history began and ended with their interactions with white people has grown old as fuck.