Luke Y. Thompson

Los Angeles

Freelance Writer and Editor at Freelance

Film critic. Toy blogger/photographer. @Slashfilm listicler. Free agent to write/edit. In some documentaries. NOT the Grocery Outlet guy. Half-English atheist

Articles

The 15 Best Monster Movies Of All Time, Ranked - SlashFilm

4 days ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

Ever since we first learn about dinosaurs as kids, the idea of monsters is fascinating. More powerful and fantastical than regular animals, they inhabit the closet space of our minds and dark corners of imagination. It's a bummer to grow up and realize that creatures like Bigfoot and Nessie probably don't exist, but it's a blast to see movies in which the only limits to the large, dangerous things we can see are the filmmakers' creativity.
15 Actors Who Struggled To Find Roles After Successful Movies

3 weeks ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

A great role can make a career... if there's a decent follow up. A good actor makes you believe they are the character, but sometimes, if they make you believe too well, it becomes impossible to see them as anyone else — and that turned out to be the case for many of the actors on this list.
What Happened To The Cast Of Revenge Of The Nerds?

1 month ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

"Heeh! Heeh! Heeh!" With a wheezy laugh and goofy grins, "Revenge of the Nerds" took 1984 by storm. In a theatrical year dominated by Axel Foley, Indiana Jones, Gizmo, the Ghostbusters, and Mr. Miyagi, it was a raunchy college comedy for the older kids, promoting the triumph of the intelligent and the uncool over the strong and the sexy.
15 Actors Who Faced Backlash For Accepting Controversial Roles

1 month ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

Oh, for the life of a movie star! To be able to pretend for a living, and in return face the adulation of an adoring public! Except, of course, when one doesn't. No actor sets out to make a failure, and few seek to be hated, but many over the years have taken on roles that showered them in backlash. Whether it was the role itself that was deemed inappropriate or their particular performance of it, some actors have been associated with roles that risked alienating huge chunks of the public.
What Happened To The Cast Of Leave It To Beaver After The Finale?

1 month ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

There may be no more archetypical American family sitcom than "Leave it to Beaver." Even character names became archetypes, as "Ward Cleaver" instantly connotes a firm-but-fair perfect father, and a June Cleaver type would be assumed a wholesomely beautiful housewife and mother. Family problems, drawn from the writers' real lives, usually proved solvable, and the Cleaver clan generally provided the model of the family that the viewer would like to have.
The Worst Thing Each Main Character Of Star Trek: The Original Series Has Done

1 month ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

The main crew of the original "Star Trek" are not, by most stretches of the imagination, anti-heroes. They're the good guys, traveling through space in the service of exploration and peace. They're a diverse bunch who all get along...usually. If Starfleet were real, James Tiberius Kirk and his crew would be in its heroes hall of fame. Nobody, however, is perfect.
The 15 Worst Movie Sequels Ever

1 month ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

If you think sequels are bad now, you should have seen them a couple decades ago. Today, franchises are so ubiquitous that the studios take time to get them as right as possible, securing the original stars and trying to write stories that equal their predecessors. At the dawn of the blockbuster era, however, sequels were seen as cheap cash cows to be rushed out as quickly as possible while people still remembered the original.
10 Real Criminals Who Got Hired To Act As Criminals In Movies And TV - SlashFilm

2 months ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

Actors love to talk about authenticity, but if that were all it took, we wouldn't need them at all — cops, lawyers, and singles on the prowl could just play themselves (space aliens and superheroes, maybe not so much). There's more to it than that, of course, but sometimes it doesn't hurt to have a background in the role being played. Many former Marines have done well as actors, using their discipline for our entertainment.
What Happened To The Cast Of Star Trek: Voyager?

2 months ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

It's taken a while, but it feels like we're hitting peak "Star Trek: Voyager" nostalgia these days. It was not always like this: On the heels of "The Next Generation" movies and the sprawling war saga of "Deep Space Nine," the premise of "Voyager," which hurled a Federation ship to the other side of the universe where it presumably would encounter nothing familiar, wasn't as compelling.
10 Controversial Movies That Are Still Worth Watching

2 months ago | slashfilm.com | Luke Y. Thompson

A lot of the best art is provocative, and movies are no exception, but not all provocations are created equal. Some great movies don't age well over time and offend newer generations. Others are meant to offend for all time, and they do. Controversial movies tend to push boundaries, but they don't always do it intentionally. In spite of the controversy, however, or at times because of it, they may still be worthwhile watches.