Ric Menello

Richard "Ric" Menello (August 20, 1952 – March 1, 2013) was an American filmmaker and screenwriter. Menello co-directed the landmark music video for the Beastie Boys' 1987 single, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)". His contributions to music during the era led MTV to call him, "one of the most influential visionaries behind the emergence of commercial hip-hop in the 1980s.", starring Marion Cotillard and Joaquin Phoenix. Menello started writing film criticism in college for the NYU Journal and the Arts and Humor magazine Cold Duck, and his articles appeared in Film Comment, Photon and Blood Times. He later became a regular contributor to European Trash Cinema, where he critiqued Italian and French genre films. One of those early articles, "Dark Universe: The World of Dario Argento" (Photon July 1975) is cited in Maitland McDonagh's book Broken Mirrors, Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento.

Wishing to broaden his experiences in the Arts, Menello acted onstage in such Off and Off-Off Broadway groups as Theater At Riverside Church, Program in Educational Theater and Sammarkind Players. He appeared in productions of Romeo And Juliet, She Stoops to Conquer, Guys And Dolls, The Miracle Worker, Wind In The Willows and Bell, Book & Candle.

At NYU, he studied acting with and assisted the legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray, director of Rebel Without a Cause. He continued to act in many of his music videos and in the feature films Tougher Than Leather and Drop Dead Rock (both of which he co-wrote). He and critic Dan Yakir contributed full-length audio commentary for the DVD release of the late Claude Chabrol's Pleasure Party (Une Partie de Plaisir), as well for Chabrol's Cry of the Owl (Le Cri du Hibou). He maintained a long distance relationship for years with Chabrol, writing to him at length to discuss his many films. Chabrol gifted Menello with his own autographed, personally notated script for his film L'Enfer (Hell). Menello researched the life of the late director Jean-Pierre Melville, that included correspondence with Pierre Lesou, Philippe Labro and Bertrand Tavernier among others. Menello received a special thanks in the acknowledgement section of Ginette Vincendeau's book Jean Pierre Melville: An American in Paris, further sharing his views on Melville with many fellow writers and cinephiles.

During the 1980s, Menello was employed as a part-time desk clerk at Weinstein dormitory at New York University (NYU) while simultaneously attending graduate school at NYU. Menello met record producer Rick Rubin, the founder of Def Jam Recordings, while Rubin was living in the same NYU dorm.

Menello continued his association with the Beastie Boys by writing a television pilot, The Beastie Boys Get Stupid, which he co-created, with Rubin. He then wrote the screenplay for the feature-length film Scared Stupid, that was to mark The Beastie Boys feature film debut. When relations between Rubin and The Beastie Boys fractured, resulting in the Beasties leaving Def Jam, the feature film was shelved despite receiving full backing from New Line Cinema. Menello and Dubin co-directed the Beastie Boys' music video "No Sleep till Brooklyn" in 1987. Menello then went on to make several other music videos as a solo director including such highly distinct and hugely successful videos as LL Cool J's "Going Back to Cali", Danzig's "Mother", and Slick Rick's "Children's Story". He additionally crafted videos for artists as diverse as MC Lyte ("Cappuccino") and Marcia Griffiths. Rob Tannenbaum, the author of the 2011 book, I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, noted that "There are no more than a handful of music videos that have done more for a band's career and more vividly described their image than 'Fight For Your Right To Party', did for the Beastie Boys." and "Last Day of My Life," which Giordano both directed and shot. The Bad Blood video was originally influenced by Samuel Fuller's film Verboten! and their treatment further developed into a powerful, thought-provoking clip that was voted Best Anti-Racism video during the first MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony in 1994. The video later spawned a series of commercials and public service announcements by Doro calling for racial tolerance in Germany. Giordano and Menello continued working on music videos, with one of their last MTV collaborations being the low-budget video for Kittie's Funeral For Yesterday that Giordano directed and to which Menello contributed and co-wrote the treatment.

Screenwriting Menello also worked as a screenwriter throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s. He often wrote at night at the Vox Pop cafe in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn. He moved to another Brooklyn bar, Sycamore, when Vox Pop closed in 2011. He hosted a weekly film screening, with guests including Mark Romanek and Darren Aronofsky. Menello also collaborated with actors, including friend Owen Wilson, to revise and strengthen existing dialogue. at the Newkirk Plaza Tunnel in Brooklyn was dedicated to Ric on May 11, 2013.

Immediately after Menello's death, Richard Brody eulogised Menello in series of articles which appeared in the New Yorker. The friends of Menello responded, citing factual inaccuracies in Brody's articles.