Longtime Oscar writer, Bruce Vilanch spoke to New York Magazine’s Vulture Blog and criticized Oscar host James Franco’s performance on Hollywood’s biggest night.

He attributed Franco’s failure to his being very busy, “He has so many balls in the air, he didn’t get to town till Thursday before the show on Sunday. And so we e-mailed a lot. But we had a lot of meetings. He had a bunch of people who were writing for him… So there was a lot of communication beforehand. But he didn’t get there.”

Vilanch added that Franco told him he wouldn’t be nervous and chose Franco and Hathaway because he liked their performances on ‘Saturday Night Live’, “I don’t think he realized how big a deal it is to do it until he was actually confronted with it. I think he thought he would kind of … I don’t know what he thought. I thought maybe it was a performance-art prank, and then I realized he sincerely wanted to do it. But it’s outside of those guys’ comfort zones. The only people who know how to host those shows are people who get up onstage every night and say, ‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. A funny thing happened … ‘ Or people like Bette [Midler] who get up and sing all night and tell stories.”

Since the interview, Franco has struck back on his Twitter, saying, “Bruce, he let me down,” and tweeting a picture of him and Vilanch with graffiti on it, according to the Huffington Post.

In another response to Vilanch, Awards-specialist, Tom O’Neil wrote Vilanch a memo, relayed by the LA Times telling him that he had gall blaming Franco for his Oscar disaster. “The problem with the ceremony wasn’t that Franco wasn’t available to attend more rehearsals or because the gig was outside his comfort zone, as you told Vulture. It was because you and your team wrote a lousy show,” he said.

He added that Franco and Hathaway are actors and just read, “The words written by you and your cohorts who penned unfunny, unremarkable lines this year.” Finally, he suggested that Vilanch wake up and go write a funny apology tweet to James Franco.