As Funny as Solomon

Ed Solomon is a terrific writer.  His best-known screenplays are Men in Black and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (and its sequels), but he also wrote such films as Now You See Me (and its sequel), Charlie's Angels (the original, not the dismal sequel or upcoming, new version), Leaving Normal and more, including the inventive, limited-series Mosaic for HBO, done with director Steve Soderbergh and the TV series, It's Garry Shandling's Show.  I did an "Email Interview" with him several years back when I wrote that column for the WGA website, and he was open, thoughtful and enjoyable.

I came across this piece he wrote six months ago for the New Yorker, and it's an absolute hoot.  It was probably a reasonably easy thing to write, though, because mostly it's the transcript of an exchange he had on social media.  As he explains in the piece, a friend of his had his account hacked, and the hacker contacted Ed in hopes of scamming him for money.  But Ed caught on early that this wasn't his friend.  And rather than just shutting things down, being a high-end comedy writer he decided to go all in -- and continued the discussion as if he bought the whole thing.

It's wonderful.  You can read it all here.