Writing
Luke’s very first work as a published author was a poem written when he was 8 years old, and printed two years later. The poem, written for a school assignment, was entitled “I Hate Mustard,” and became the title piece in a collection of a stories and humor by children for children, published by the Women’s Community Press in Dublin, Ireland. The book is long since out of print, though at the time it made front-page news in Dublin, as the book publishers had lost Luke’s return address and were engaged in a national search to try to find him!
Luke was president of the Creative Writing club in high school, and in college wrote political editorials for USC’s Daily Trojan. Meanwhile, as a radio host on student-run KSCR, he had begun to review movies on-air.
Following college, he interned at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons production company, ultimately selling them a screenplay entitled SOUL MATES (a.k.a. WITCHFINDER). Sadly, the project was never made. Undaunted, Luke continued to write scripts, but they weren’t paying the bills. When the New Times L.A. ran an ad seeking a new film critic, he applied, and a few months later, was hired on as assistant arts editor and a part-time film-critic, syndicated through all of the company’s publications. Rising through the ranks, he became first a full-time film critic and then arts editor…just before the paper folded. He remained with the company at the corporate level for a few years as Film Editor, before resigning to go freelance, working for publications like L.A. CityBeat.
Following the merger of New Times and Village Voice, Luke worked for just over a year at the OC Weekly as a staff writer, winning a Press Club Award for his work there, and he still occasionally contributes to the LA Weekly, while steadily reviewing movies for E! Online.
“Keep it coming, Thompson. The nuttier, the better…as long as you really mean it.” — Jeffrey Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere
“Luke is irreverent and just a real hoot to read.” — Michael Collins, L.A. Press Club’s “8-Ball”
“a big hard-drinking social anarchist” — Luke Ford, Lukeford.net
“Luke’s easily one of the sharpest, most well-versed and professional movie writers I’ve worked with. Also, and this means a lot to me, the guy’s funny.” — Glenn Gaslin, E! Online/New Times LA
“He edits his own videos, knows how to generate traffic and his prose borders on poetic. Two thumbs up.” — Janine Kahn, OC Weekly/SF Weekly
“a knowledgeable and dedicated film critic and feature writer” — Steve Appleford, L.A. CityBeat
- Twitter – Warning: Luke’s tweets are often offensive and/or untrue…
- Rotten Tomatoes – LYT reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
- LYT on IMDB – Luke’s Internet Movie Database page
- E! Online movie reviews – click here every Friday for new E! reviews by Luke and others.
- Old New Times stuff – archived pieces from the now-defunct New Times LA
- LAFCA – website of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association
- LYT CityBeat archive – The paper folded, but the site’s still online…for now
- LYT's OC Weekly archive – A year or so of Luke’s best Orange County stuff
- LA Weekly – Occasional source of new LYT stuff
LYT SCREENPLAYS
Luke still has a number of screenplays available for sale — below are the descriptions, plus FREE downloads of the first ten pages of each! Like what you read? Go to the contact page linked at the top of this one, and hit us up for more.
ONE FEATHER (Horror/Suspense) – Trapped in an abusive and terrifying psychiatric institution, a man who believes himself to be the Angel of Death must come to terms with his past and uncover the asylum’s frightening secret.
Click to download the first ten pages of ONE FEATHER!
KNIGHT’S AFTER DARK (Sci-Fi/Comedy/Horror) – Working for minimum wage at a big-box store can really suck sometimes, especially on the night shift…on the night the world ends.
Click to download the first ten pages of KNIGHT’S AFTER DARK!
DARKNESS WITHIN (Horror/Romance/College) – Bored by the conformity she finds at college, a young girl’s search for something different sends her into the arms of a charming and frightening bloodsucker, whose love might just be the death of her…and everybody else.
Click to download the first ten pages of DARKNESS WITHIN!
ONE LESS REDNECK (Gross-Out/Lowbrow Comedy)– Homophobic hick Robertson Billybob Redneck used to be the smartest guy in all of Mud Creek, South Carolina, having taken 5 years to finish the fourth grade instead of the usual ten…but when a new smart-aleck nerd moves to town and challenges his position, a battle of life and death ensues that will draw the attention of God, Satan, a gay liberationist superhero, the president, the world’s deadliest terrorist, and even Elvis Presley his own bad self.
Click to download the first ten pages of ONE LESS REDNECK!
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