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Tarantino weighs in on Oscars race criticism

For the second year in a row, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated an all-white group of actors.

The move pushed aside films like Concussion and Creed which feature black actors Will Smith and Michael B Jordan in the lead roles.

The nominations were announced last week, sparking a social media uproar, using the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite.

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The Academy drew a strong backlash last year as well, after it selected an all-white group of acting nominees, notably bypassing David Oyelowo who played Martin Luther King Jr in Selma.

Click here for the list of nominationsĀ Ā 
Speaking with ABC News Breakfast, Tarantino said he believed the Academy took actors like Samuel L Jackson for granted, after he missed out on a best actor nomination.

ā€œMy only guess, frankly, is that they take him (Oyelowo) for granted. That would be my only guess,ā€ Tarantino said.

Samuel L. Jackson stars in Tarantino’s latest film — an American Western mystery about eight strangers who escape a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover.

ā€œI actually think dealing with the race relations between white and black in America is one of the things I can offer to the Westerns genre that maybe the other great Western directors didn’t do,ā€ Tarantino said.

ā€œThis kind of conversation is something I think I have to offer to the genre.ā€

He also said it was important to make films that mattered, not to win awards, but recognition was always important.

ā€œIf you make a movie this cynical, this bleak, about America and Americans all of a sudden decide they don’t like that message … OK, well that’s not so surprising,ā€ he said.

ā€œI’ve been making movies for a long time … my last couple of movies were hits and it’s not really important that this is a hit.

ā€œIt’s important that I make it and it’s important that it plays for years and people see it down the line.ā€

Tarantino hinted Hateful Eight would not be his last film, saying he could make 11, but ā€œit’s not going to be 13 or 14ā€.

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