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25 Facts About Ric Menello

1.

Richard "Ric" Menello was an American filmmaker and screenwriter.

2.

Ric Menello earned a bachelor's degree in dramatic literature and cinema from New York University.

3.

Ric Menello continued to take graduate courses in cinema studies at NYU after completing his bachelor's.

4.

Ric 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.

5.

Ric Menello later became a regular contributor to European Trash Cinema, where he critiqued Italian and French genre films.

6.

Ric Menello continued to act in many of his music videos and in the feature films Tougher Than Leather and Drop Dead Rock.

7.

Ric Menello maintained a long distance relationship for years with Chabrol, writing to him at length to discuss his many films.

8.

Ric Menello researched the life of the late director Jean-Pierre Melville, that included correspondence with Pierre Lesou, Philippe Labro and Bertrand Tavernier among others.

9.

Ric Menello first met the Beastie Boys while working at NYU.

10.

Rick knows what he likes, but it takes Menello to help Rick understand it.

11.

Ric Menello later described himself as hesitant to direct Fight for Your Right out of concern of "ruining their careers," but accepted the offer.

12.

Ric Menello crafted the low budget TV commercial for the Licensed to Ill album after the album began to take off in 1986.

13.

Ric Menello continued his association with the Beastie Boys by writing a television pilot, The Beastie Boys Get Stupid, which he co-created, with Rubin.

14.

Ric Menello then wrote the screenplay for the feature-length film Scared Stupid, that was to mark The Beastie Boys feature film debut.

15.

Ric Menello additionally crafted videos for artists as diverse as MC Lyte and Marcia Griffiths.

16.

Ric Menello continued to work behind the scenes writing and co-writing treatments for an endless stream of music videos.

17.

Giordano and Ric 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 Ric Menello contributed and co-wrote the treatment.

18.

Ric Menello worked as a screenwriter throughout the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.

19.

Ric Menello often wrote at night at the Vox Pop cafe in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn.

20.

Ric Menello moved to another Brooklyn bar, Sycamore, when Vox Pop closed in 2011.

21.

Ric Menello hosted a weekly film screening, with guests including Mark Romanek and Darren Aronofsky.

22.

Ric Menello collaborated with actors, including friend Owen Wilson, to revise and strengthen existing dialogue.

23.

Ric Menello co-wrote Gray's film The Immigrant, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard, and Jeremy Renner that screened at the Cannes Film Festival and the New York Film Festival prior to its May 2014 release through The Weinstein Company.

24.

Ric Menello died from a heart attack on March 1,2013, aged 60.

25.

The friends of Ric Menello responded, citing factual inaccuracies in Brody's articles.