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."

Menello's screenwriting credits included the 1988 Run–D.M.C. film, Tougher Than Leather, directed by Rick Rubin; the 2008 film, Two Lovers, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joaquin Phoenix; and the 2013 film, The Immigrant, which stars Joaquin Phoenix.

Menello was raised in Brooklyn, New York. He earned a bachelor's degree in dramatic literature and cinema from New York University. He continued to take graduate courses in cinema studies at NYU after completing his bachelor's. 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.

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