#Matthew Tucker had enough he is judging

[dogxfiend]

@harkcr

The night was just beginning to wind down; or at least, the party was. The night was still fairly early by Syde’s standards, but not everyone lived by his nocturnal schedule, and even the most spirited of his partygoers were usually quite tuckered out by 3:00AM or so. Now it was approaching 1:00AM and a good number of the guests had left. The rooms of his home were no longer crowded or noisy, instead only small clusters of people remained, sitting around, chatting quietly, drinking. It was a more relaxed atmosphere than the earlier height of things.

Syde certainly had room enough in his home for some to stay the night if they wished, and sometimes people did. It inspired some talk, and he couldn’t tend to guests during the day, had some household staff that usually saw to his guests’ breakfasts and then saw them out in the morning. But so many people knew the young bachelor Matthew Syde, and liked him, that it was difficult to judge him or his guests too harshly. The types who judged his guests for staying the night typically weren’t the type to attend his parties anyway. Prudes and gossips, as he saw them, and not the fun kind of gossips either.

But no one seemed to have plans of staying the night tonight, sadly. So it was a good thing he’d gotten plenty of fun in earlier. Drink in hand, Syde made the rounds checking on what was left of his guests until gravitating to an unfamiliar face sat alone, kind of a sickly-looking thing who hadn’t done much socializing since arriving with another group. No one had seemed to know who the man was, in fact, but Syde didn’t worry himself over it much; it wasn’t unheard of for the grapevine to spread word of his gatherings to strangers. His circle had a tendency to grow that way.

“Excuse me sir, are you feeling alright? Forgive me, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” Syde greeted with a warm smile.

[vapidink]

HP AU: Halloween!

“You shouldn’t buy so much candy. Besides, you’re already sweet enough.”

Eli couldn’t hold back a  groan at the cheesy line. Without turning to look, he knew that Matthew would be grinning proudly, as if he’d said something particularly clever.

“I thought I told you to quit it with the pick up lines,” he said, finally turning to face Matthew.

As Eli had predicted, Matthew was grinning widely. He was also carrying armfuls of candy. Enough that Eli could feel his mouth water at the sight.

“But they’re so fun,” Matthew all but whined.

Eli rolled his eyes, wondering if it was too late to hex Michael for introducing Matthew to pick up lines and puns.

“Well, they’re not fun for me,” Eli pointed out. Mostly, they were just embarrassing.

“But you’re so cute when you blush,” Matthew said cheerfully.

Off to the side, a couple of Hufflepuff girls giggled while throwing not so subtle looks their way. Eli glared and they hurried off, but he could feel his cheeks burning.

“Are you going to buy all that?” Eli figured it would be in his best interest to change the subject.

“Yep, gotta stock up while I can.” Matthew looked at the lone chocolate frog Eli was holding. “Is that all you’re getting?”

Eli looked down at the gold and purple box in his hand.

“Yeah, I mean, these things are pretty big,” he said, shrugging.

There was a strange look on Matthew’s face, but it was gone in a moment, replaced with one of his usual smiles. One second he looked thoughtful and the next he looked as silly as always.

“Then let’s go pay and then we can get some butterbeers,” he said, turning to make his was across the busy candy shop. Eli followed closely, taking advantage of Matthew’s ability to easily clear a path. Sometimes, it was good to know someone taller than him. Not that Eli would admit it.

Not long after, they were outside Honeydukes, the autumn breeze making Eli shiver. He didn’t complain when Matthew drew closer to him, grateful for the bit of extra warmth. By the time they made it to the Three Broomsticks, Eli’s face was almost as red as his hair and he wished he’d bothered to wear a hat. The warmth of the pub was a welcome change and Eli let Matthew lead him to an empty table.

“I’ll be right back with the butterbeers,” Matthew said before heading off to get said drinks.

Eli settled in his seat and wondered, not for the first time, how Matthew had gotten him to agree to go with him to Hogsmeade. Part of it was Eli’s friends’ fault. Both Collin and Tucker had claimed they were staying to study—which was questionable since they never actually studied. Vanessa had said she was sick and wanted to stay in the castle to rest. She had looked perfectly healthy to Eli despite the unconvincing cough she’d thrown in.

Obviously, his friends were filthy liars.

Still, it wasn’t so bad. Matthew was nice enough when he wasn’t making stupid jokes. Sadly, he was usually making stupid jokes. Honestly, if he weren’t so annoying Eli wouldn’t be so hesitant to date him. Even if just thinking about it made Eli feel ridiculously embarrassed.

“Here you go.”

The sudden voice and the sound of the heavy mug being set down before him nearly made Eli jump. When he looked up, Matthew was giving him a curious look.

“Oh, thanks,” Eli hurried to say, inwardly wincing at how nervous he sounded. He took a sip of his warm drink and was glad to have done so. The warmth of the sweet drink served to calm him a bit.

Matthew tried his own drink and Eli snorted at the foam stuck to his upper lip. As always, Matthew didn’t look  the least bit bothered, merely wiping away his foamy mustache.

“So, what had you looking so thoughtful?” he asked.

“Nothing.” Eli wished he could lie more convincingly.

“Really? So you weren’t thinking naughty things about me?”

Eli nearly spat out the bit f butterbeer he’d just sipped.

“I wasn’t!” Eli finally managed to say with a bright red face.

“Aw, that’s too bad.” Matthew sighed and had the gall to look disappointed. Eli started to reconsider his previous thoughts. Matthew was an asshole. “Don’t look so mad, I’m just joking,” Matthew said, laughing at the glare Eli was shooting him.

“Well it’s not funny,” Eli said with a huff. “I don’t even know why I agreed to come along with you.”

“Because of my dashing good looks and charming personality?”

“You realize I can hex you, right?”

“Okay, I’ll be good.” Matthew leaned a bit further away from Eli as he spoke. Eli just sighed, tired of Matthew picking on him.

“Why do you even like to bother me so much?” he asked, not really expecting an answer. Or at least not a serious one.

“Because you’re cute and I like you,” Matthew said without hesitation. Then, he took on a sheepish look, very much unlike him. “And I know I suck at showing you that I do, but I really, really like you and I’m sorry if I annoy you. Hopefully that won’t keep you from giving me a chance?”

The way he asked, as if afraid of being rejected, made Eli’s annoyance diminish just the slightest bit. He thought about the way Matthew had looked so happy to see Eli visiting him in the hospital wing after he’d fallen during his quidditch match. Of how excited Matthew had been when Eli agreed to go with him to Hogsmeade. Maybe he wasn’t the best at showing Eli he liked him, but it was still pretty clear to Eli.

“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” Eli supposed that was okay because Eli wasn’t the best at showing he cared either.

Matthew was grinning after that comment and Eli had to drink some more butterbeer to avoid looking at him. He felt pleasantly warm and wasn’t sure it was all because of the hot drink.

They went back to the castle not long after that, deciding they should get ready for the Halloween feast. Matthew was reluctant to leave Eli’s side, which some girls found hilarious judging by all their giggling. Eli didn’t think they would find it funny if they were in his place, especially with Matthew clinging to him while the redhead tried to push him away.

“Oh come on, can’t I at least walk you back to your secret lair?” Eli rolled his eyes at Matthew’s choice of words.

“If I did it wouldn’t be a secret, would it?”

Matthew seemed to agree with Eli’s very sarcastic logic, because he let go with a sigh.

“Well, I still had fun,” he said. And then, before Eli could do anything to stop him, he leaned over and gave the redhead a quick peck on the cheek.

And then he ran for it.

“See you at the feast!” Matthew called back with a large grin and pink tinged cheeks as he hurried away from Eli.

For a moment, Eli stood there in the middle of the corridor, frozen in surprise. Then, he felt his whole face heat up as he finally processed what had just happened. After looking around, he was relieved to note that no one had been around to see what had just happened, and so he made his way to the Ravenclaw tower where he could hopefully freak out in the privacy of his dorm.

It took both Tucker and Collin to drag Eli to the Great Hall and the redhead spent most of the feast glaring at Matthew. Even the food couldn’t distract him too much.

He felt a bit better when he got back to his dormitory, deciding some sleep would help. Still, Eli wasn’t prepared for the small pile of sweets laying in the middle of his bed. There was note with a heart on it sitting right on top and it didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was from.

It also didn’t take genius to figure out how it had gotten there, especially judging by the not so subtle looks Collin and Tucker were throwing his way. But Eli was too tired to deal with it, so he just put the candy away and got in bed, deciding to deal with his traitorous friends in the morning.

He tried to ignore the smile that wouldn’t go away until he fell asleep.

[cubscribbles]

Meek Mill Pleads Guilty To Gun Charge

By Matthew McCarty

Worldwide renowned rapper and celebrity Meek Mill has recently pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor gun charge yesterday in a plea deal that will end his long awaited 12 year criminal case. Due to the judge’s ruling that his case in 2008 had credibility problems with his arresting officer, Meek was approved for a new trial scheduled for this past July. The judges reasoning for the new trial was due to his understanding that Meek Mill’s previous 2 year segmented imprisonment was enough in terms of punishment for him. Judge Leon Tucker further expressed his feelings towards Meek, “I know this has been a long road for you and hopefully this will be the end of it.”

Meek expressed his emotions through Twitter in a tweet, “I’m extremely grateful that my long legal battle is finally behind me and I appreciate that it has sparked a much-needed discussion about probation reform and the inequalities that exist within our two Americas.” This was a challenge he’d been facing for a very long time, so one can only wonder how stressful and mentally exhausting this was for him. He’d initially gone to jail in 2009 for drug and gun charges, but was later released on parole and was given a 10 year probation. Even though he’s finally escaped the incarceration system, he claims that he still doesn’t feel free.

The most important idea to take away from this, is that this kind of situation can occur in anyone’s lives be it, mother, father, friend, cousin etc. In life, every choice that is made will have an outcome, and whatever that outcome may be, it is important to remember how one may have gotten there in the first place.

[theconservativebrief]

President Trump’s fury over the Russia probe has just led to the ouster of the man who most embodies Trumpism — and who played a key role in Trump’s surprise election win in 2016.

On Wednesday, just one day after the midterm elections, Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign, ending the longtime Alabama senator’s nearly two years running the Department of Justice.

Trump tweeted that Matthew Whitaker, Sessions’ chief of staff, will take over as the acting head of the Justice Department, adding that a permanent replacement will be announced soon. “We thank Attorney General Jeff Sessions for his service, and wish him well!,” Trump continued.

Sessions also wrote a resignation letter, which he says Trump requested, in which he outlined much of what he did in office, including combating gangs. “I have served honorably as your Attorney General and have worked to implement the law enforcement agenda based on the rule of law that formed a central part of your campaign,” he wrote.

The move had been telegraphed on Capitol Hill, with top Republican Senators and former Sessions allies like Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Chuck Grassley of Iowa saying they expected Sessions’s ouster after the midterm elections.

Still, the resignation took few by surprise. Trump has been expressing his anger at Sessions for months, prompting repeated questions about how long the attorney general would keep his job. (Sessions is known to have offered to resign at least once; Trump refused to accept it.)

Trump added fuel to the fire during an August 23 interview with Fox News. “I put in an attorney general who never took control of the Justice Department,” the president said. “Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn’t have put him in.”

Sessions responded mere hours later. “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda — one that protects the safety and security and rights of the American people reduces, violent crime, enforces our immigration laws, promotes economic growth, and advances religious liberty,” Sessions said in a written statement.

“While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” he added.

That hasn’t stopped Trump from repeatedly publicly blasting Sessions. In September, for example, Trump targeted Sessions after the Justice Department indicted two Republican members of Congress.

“Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department,” Trump tweeted on September 3. “Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff……”

And the president keeps criticizing Sessions — the nation’s top law enforcement official — for recusing himself from the probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia, a move that set the stage for the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller. Trump has also complained that Sessions isn’t sufficiently loyal because he has since failed to prevent Mueller from indicting a growing number of Trump confidantes and targeting others.

The irony of Sessions’s departure is that Trump has removed one of his most loyal foot soldiers, which could imperil other parts of the president’s agenda.

Sessions was one of the first senators to endorse Trump, and used his time as the nation’s top law enforcement officer to implement the anti-immigration, “tough on crime” policies that were at the core of Trump’s campaign.

Sessions pulled back federal oversight of local police departments. He’s moved to prosecute anyone who illegally crosses the US-Mexico border regardless of the conditions they’re escaping back home, while pushing immigration judges to take on more deportation cases. He rescinded previous limitations on harsh mandatory minimum prison sentences for low-level drug offenses, and asked prosecutors to consider the death penalty in some drug trafficking cases.

Whether Trump realizes it or not, the president has let his fury over the Russia investigation threaten his policy agenda — throwing his already chaotic presidency into even more chaos.

The longstanding questions over the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia hobbled Sessions from the start.

During his January 2017 confirmation hearings, Sessions told senators — while under oath — “I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians.”

As the Washington Post reported soon after, Sessions did meet with Russian officials during the presidential campaign — specifically, with Russia’s then-ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak.

Sessions later claimed that he misunderstood the original question, and meant to say that he had only met with Russian officials in his capacity as a US senator, not as a surrogate to the Trump campaign. In March, he said, “I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign.”

That was also untrue: In July 2017, the Post reported that Sessions had, in fact, talked with Kislyak about the presidential election during the campaign.

Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia probe on March 2, 2017, because of his own ties to Moscow, a move that was hailed by former Justice Department officials from both parties.

That put the Russia probe in the hands of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who would later name Mueller as the special counsel. Trump routinely derides Rosenstein, calling him a Democrat, even though he’s a lifelong Republican.

Rosenstein has repeatedly declined to say he would fire Mueller even if Trump asked him to (Rosenstein is technically the only one with the authority to fire Mueller, though Trump could simply oust Rosenstein and order his replacement to do so).

Sessions’s recusal infuriated Trump. In an interview with the New York Times in July 2017, Trump lashed out at Sessions for his decision: “Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.”

That anger transferred over to another of Trump’s gripes: that Sessions would not investigate alleged connections between Hillary Clinton and Russia during the presidential campaign. Trump also fumed about this on Twitter in last July 2017, going so far as to call him “VERY weak.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2017

According to reports at the time, Trump hoped his mockery of Sessions would humiliate him into resigning. But on July 27, 2017, Sessions told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson that he wasn’t ready to go.

“I’m confident I made the right decision,” he told Carlson about the recusal. “The decision is consistent with the rule of law. And an attorney general who doesn’t follow the law is not very effective in leading the Department of Justice.”

He added: “I serve at the pleasure of the president. If he wants to make a change, he can certainly do so.” Mueller is currently investigating whether Trump’s alleged efforts to push Sessions out last year via Twitter ridicule formed part of an effort to obstruct the probe, which would be a potentially criminal offense. It’s unclear if Mueller will also investigate Trump’s use of Twitter in 2018 against Sessions.

Tensions continued to simmer for months — and those tensions became publicly evident nine months before the midterm elections.

On February 28, Trump complained that Sessions wouldn’t corroborate his unfounded belief in the existence of a widespread conspiracy — led by federal law enforcement personnel — to undermine Trump’s candidacy during the 2016 presidential election.

Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2018

There’s no evidence to back this theory up. Trump believes the FBI tricked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to surveil a former campaign member, Carter Page, based on a Democrat-connected dossier. That, Trump supporters claim, started the process that eventually led to special counsel Mueller’s probe into possible Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential election — a probe Trump consistently labels a “WITCH HUNT!”

But Trump is wrong. We now know the Trump-Russia investigation began (at least in part) because a former Trump campaign aide, George Papadopoulos, told Australia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom that Russia had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of hacked emails.

Further, surveillance of Page was justified by ample corroborating evidence beyond the so-called “Steele dossier” and was renewed several times because judges — all appointed to the federal bench by GOP presidents and selected for FISC duty by Supreme Court Justice John Roberts, who was also appointed by a Republican — deemed the ongoing surveillance to be fruitful.

But Trump still believes what Fox News tells him: He’s the victim. In a move clearly intended to mollify the president, Sessions on February 27 asked the Justice Department’s inspector general to look into the alleged abuse. Whatever the intent, that clearly wasn’t enough for Trump.

Then things got a little dramatic. On February 28, the day of Trump’s complaints on Twitter, Sessions had a very public night out at dinner with Rosenstein and Solicitor General Noel Francisco. As Vox’s Matt Yglesias pointed out, the seemingly innocuous meal was actually a public display of defiance: It “was a powerful symbol of both the attorney general’s independence from Trump and the limits of that integrity.”

Trump put Sessions and Rosenstein in his crosshairs because they won’t stop Mueller’s probe. For Sessions to dine with Rosenstein on the same day Trump called him out on Twitter shows that the attorney general was distancing himself from the president.

It was quite the public breakup for two formerly great colleagues and friends.

Remember: Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump — back when Trump’s candidacy was still a huge point of controversy in the Republican Party. And he has consistently backed Trump’s agenda, particularly Trump’s anti-immigration and “tough on crime” policy proposals.

But that didn’t matter: The bottom line, to Trump, was that Sessions had done something that he saw as unfair and harmful to his presidency. So Trump fired Sessions, and may permanently replace him with someone who will help slow — or halt — the Mueller probe.

That could help Trump with his legal problems. But in the long term, removing Sessions means Trump has lost a key ally in pushing and enforcing his key agenda items.

After the Times posted its July 2017 interview with Trump, Fox News’s Carlson, who’s typically pro-Trump, did something he rarely does on his show: he criticized the president.

Carlson called Trump’s comments about Sessions “a useless, self-destructive act,” and described Sessions as “the closest ally Trump has in this administration.”

He went on:

As attorney general, Sessions has been the rare person in the entire executive branch making actual progress implementing the agenda his boss ran on, because he’s the rare person who believes in it. … He’s gone after sanctuary cities, he’s enforced immigration laws, he’s ended the Obama administration’s attacks on local police departments, and a lot more.

Carlson’s general point is correct: While much of the president’s agenda — from his travel ban to Obamacare repeal — has been held up or diluted in the courts and Congress, Sessions has been the rare figure putting real policy gravitas behind Trumpism.

For example, shortly after taking office, Sessions said that the Justice Department would “pull back” from conducting federal investigations into local police departments. These investigations had been a high priority for the Obama administration — not only uncovering massive police abuses at several police departments around the country, particularly against black Americans, but also forcing the police departments to adopt reforms to address these abuses.

But these investigations drew a lot of criticism from Sessions and other supporters of “tough” policing tactics, with Sessions and others characterizing the investigations as part of a broader “war on police” that’s made it harder for cops to be as aggressive as possible.

(Sessions argues the aggressive policing tactics are necessary to crack down on crime. But experts disagree, and Black Lives Matter activists in particular point out that such aggressive tactics disproportionately hurt — and kill — minority Americans.)

Sessions also rescinded an Obama-era memo sent out by then-Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013, which told federal prosecutors to avoid charges for low-level drug offenders that could trigger lengthy mandatory minimums. His new memo says that “prosecutors should charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense” even when dealing with low-level drug crimes, calling this concept “a core principle” of the Justice Department.

In short, Sessions wanted to re-escalate the war on drugs.

And in response to the opioid epidemic, Sessions gave weight to a Trump proposal to execute drug traffickers by signing off on a memo that asked federal prosecutors to consider the death penalty for cases “dealing in extremely large quantities of drugs.” (The evidence doesn’t support this and other “tough” approaches for drugs.)

This was all exactly as Trump promised. In 2015, Trump outright told MSNBC that he’s “tough on crime.” He praised Vice President Mike Pence for, as governor of Indiana, increasing mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes. And he said police should be more aggressive than they are today, particularly by using the controversial “stop and frisk” strategy that a court struck down in New York City because it was used to target minority Americans.

These are just a few examples, but on practically every single issue that the Justice Department oversees — whether it’s policing, prisons, immigration, or voting rights, all of which make up key parts of Trumpism — Trump and Sessions were in agreement.

As even Trump allies like Carlson admitted, this makes it all the stranger that Trump lashed out at Sessions. But it drives home that Trump isn’t as interested in implementing his agenda as he is in stifling the Russia investigation by any means necessary. And that means the next months of the Trump era threaten to be even uglier and chaotic than the ones that preceded them.

Original Source -> Jeff Sessions’s resignation is a huge blow to Trumpism

via The Conservative Brief

[lorrainecparker]

ART OF THE CUT – Editing Wonder Woman

Martin Walsh won an Oscar and an Eddie for Best Editing for Chicago (2002).   His editing credits go back to the mid-‘80s and include films like Bridget Jones’ Diary, Thunderbirds, V for Vendetta, Inkheart, Clash of the Titans, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and Cinderella. Art of the Cut previously spoke with Martin about Eddie The Eagle, and are joining him again to discuss Wonder Woman.

HULLFISH: What was the schedule like on Wonder Woman?

WALSH: Well on paper it probably looked pretty generous, but like most projects it disappears pretty fast.

HULLFISH: Do you remember when you started shooting?

WALSH: November 2015 until the end of April ’16 followed by about a year of post.

HULLFISH: How’s your appendix, my friend? Last time we talked, you were off a picture because of an appendectomy.

WALSH: The appendix is gone. Thank god they don’t grow back. That was the worst pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, I don’t recommend it.

HULLFISH: I have this great quote from Robert McKee the guy that wrote the scriptwriting book, “Story.” He says, ”If the story you’re telling is the story you’re telling you’re in trouble.” Is that true in editing?

WALSH: Jesus, that’s a tough question!

HULLFISH: Is subtext important? Does it matter that the editor knows the deeper meaning of the movie? Or just what the plot and story is?

WALSH: The meaning of the Wonder Woman movie…not to be too cheesy about these things is: love conquers all and people are not always completely good and they are not always totally bad. They are capable of anything and everything. That’s the take-away for this movie.

HULLFISH: Every movie – and we talked a little about this when I interviewed you about Eddie the Eagle – every movie is a balance of making people care about the characters and then telling the plot itself or the story itself. How do you know when you have that balance right? Between because setting up characters can go on forever. So many people say the beginning of a movie is almost always too long.

WALSH: Absolutely.

HULLFISH: So how do you know that people care enough so now we can get along with the action.

WALSH: Some people felt the beginning was still a little bit too long, even after we’d finished it. We felt that everything we had in the beginning was essential to the establishment and the setup and story that we needed to put in there. It’s character stuff. It’s organic to the whole.

HULLFISH: But the danger is that if you shorten it too much, you get to the action sooner, but then nobody cares about what happens.

WALSH: Exactly. We argued this a lot. The notes are generally: Can you make the movie go faster? Can the movie be shorter? It’s a generalized, all-encompassing note that things have to be faster, shorter, get there quicker. Get to the next action a beat faster, because they feel or they fear that the audience can’t enjoy what we are offering them. There is a nervousness about that kind of stuff, so we pushed back a lot – Patty especially (director, Patty Jenkins) – on that stuff that felt long to them, but we felt was essential character, romance, human emotional stuff. Things that people need to experience in order to get on the side of the character in the movie. Real life.

HULLFISH: Was she a proponent of laying out the emotional context because she was a woman or because she’s a writer or is it simply that all directors want that?

WALSH: That’s an interesting one isn’t it, do all directors want that? I doubt that judging by some of the movies we see. I think there are directors who are nervous of emotion where it becomes more about the visceral, the physical. Maybe it is because Patty comes from the point of view of a woman but it’s a DC movie so it has to deliver on the comic book level but it delivers on an emotional level too. It delivers in a lot of areas that this genre of movie doesn’t generally spend a lot of time dealing with like mother-daughter relationships and there’s a real romantic interest there with Chris Pine, Wonder Woman’s journey, her childhood, her discovering that she’s capable of superhuman acts. All that takes a bit of time. You can’t rush through it and we felt the audience needed that time for things to sink in and to experience that alongside the characters.

HULLFISH: The last time we talked, it was about Eddie the Eagle and there was a scene with a Finnish skier that the previous editor had removed but you felt – and so did I – that it was the essence of the movie. Was there a similar scene in Wonder Woman that held the essence of the movie?

WALSH: That’s a scene quite close to the end of the movie I think. It’s between Gal Gadot and Chris Pine where they each sum up their feelings about what they’ve been through for the last couple of hours.

HULLFISH: You’ve cut very many great movies. Do you find that those essence-of-the-movie type scenes … do those things happen at the end and the beginning a lot or are they always at the end? Can you think through some of the movies that you have cut? It would seem like you would set it up at the beginnings so the audience knows, “Oh, this is what this movie is about!” Or it’s at the end so that’s what they remember when they walk out of the theater?

WALSH: Are we talking about the end of the second act, launching into the third act in a traditional three act structure?

HULLFISH: That’s interesting

WALSH: Is the twist in the end usually the climax of the second act that launches the action into the last act and changes everything so that the final act gets the propulsion it needs?

HULLFISH: That’s a great point. I bet that is where that scene lands a lot of times.

WALSH: If the movie is structured in that way often it’s a confrontational scene between the protagonist and the bad guy about what the f*ck are you going to do now? Now the rest of this movie is up to you, you’ve got to do something. There’s a challenge, a face off.

HULLFISH: You’re working again with Matthew Tucker as an associate editor. Can you tell me a little bit what his title is about? It’s a move up from assistant but its not an additional editor or a co- editor. How does your relationship with him work and why did he get that title?

WALSH:  It’s a step up from being first assistant and its not a co-editor credit because they don’t want to hire a second editor. Matt and I have worked together for a long time. These movies are huge and we get a lot of dailies, so there’s a lot of work for any one person to take on. He’s also a really good sound editor, he’s very good at presentation, he can mix the sound nicely in the Avid and we can present scenes well. I have a good guy there. In fact he’s just gone off to cut his first movie.

HULLFISH: Oh! Good for him! While we’re on the subject of Matthew: You mentioned in your earlier interview, about Eddie The Eagle, that Matthew does a lot of your sound work after you do the first picture pass.  On action scenes, do you find the pacing of your second pass needs to change because the new sound provides an additional rhythmic layer then you have to accommodate?

WALSH: Yeah. Usually tightening isn’t it? Things play a little slower when it’s got the music and sound effects on there. As soon as you put music on a sequence it plays a bit slower.

HULLFISH: With music on it, what about sound effects?

WALSH: Most sequences need a few frames off as they progress, especially action sequences. We tend to have things slightly loose at the beginning until VFX have had a pass.

HULLFISH: Everybody is different. I was talking to Dody Dorn and she was saying sometimes when you get the audio in she felt like you need to have the space for the audio to exist. Like you might have cut it and then, when you get the sound into it, you realize that you need to lengthen it instead of shortening it. I think the shortening is always that’s almost, if you had audio or not, a second pass is almost always shortened I find.

WALSH: I think I see what Dody is saying. The thing on VFX movies is you’re always trying to give everything space to breathe. There’s always a danger of not allowing everybody else to get their work in for the sake of pace and speed so that includes allowing for sound effects too.

HULLFISH: On Wonder Woman were you afforded the luxury of a screening room for dailies? Or did you watch them on your Avid?

WALSH: We had the luxury of a screening room at the studio. So Matthew and I sat through every single frame, usually at around 11am while we were shooting. Everyone else got an ipad.

HULLFISH: Back when you were cutting on film, was it the tradition to watch those things with the director in the screening room?

WALSH: Oh absolutely. At the end of every day, we’d wrap and all head off to the screening room. Glass of wine and a packet of crisps, I miss that.

HULLFISH: Tell me about missing that. What is the loss of doing it with everybody on iPads?

WALSH: The loss is not being in a room with a group of people reacting to what they’re seeing. To be able to sit in a room with the director and hear what they have to say as it goes through the gate. There’s nothing better than hearing someone say, “That’s a great take, I love that, I love that look she gave him … Oh that’s a good piece of action. Use that, don’t use this one. You see that thing there that she did with her eyes? I hate that thing she does with her eyes.” I miss it when people laugh at jokes, cry at the emotional scenes. All of it is really useful information for me, because I can go away knowing that what I’m putting together is clooser to what the director will be expecting. Now I just get circled takes, or a note sent from the script super saying, “Patty really liked this one.” But if the take is three and a half minutes long and full of resets what is it? There’s a lot more guesswork involved.

HULLFISH: Correct me if I am wrong, but the director’s vision of whether that  scene is great take or not is very different watching it in person on the set and watching it in dailies?

WALSH: Exactly, and if you’re not doing it in dailies, it can take a while to discover that: ”I thought that was the take. Maybe it is not the take. Let’s look at them all again.” Screening dailies together is a short cut to getting a better first cut.

HULLFISH: I just worked on a film where I was able to sit down almost every night with the director and a couple of the producers and the cinematographer. I didn’t play all the dailies but I would play certain selects that I thought were worth everybody watching.

WALSH: That is the way it should be. But that time in the screening room that you actually had with them – it was your own private session – that hour at the end of the day and the walk with the director to the car after: “What do you want to try? What do you want to do? How do you feel about music here?

HULLFISH: Too much pressure on the directors at the moment

WALSH: Too much pressure on them. Shoot, shoot, shoot.

HULLFISH: So you are by yourself, or with your assistant and a second on these screenings. What is the value of that big screening room? Are you watching them and making marks or notes?

WALSH: I write notes. They print me a dailies sheet so I can scribble quite large and often facetious notes. Notes that you don’t want the director to see. Also it’s a good technical pass as well. The bigger screen is going to show you more. You can see the depth of it, you can see what is going on better than you can on the TV. In a darkened room when the lights go down you feel like you’re in a movie theatre and you are experiencing those dailies for the first time. I’m a really strong believer in first reactions.

HULLFISH: Another thing that is that I like when I can’t touch the Avid. It’s a different experience because you’re not feeling like you have to do something.

WALSH: Absolutely. That’s a really good point. There’s no keyboard to hit. It just rolls on through and that’s good I think – to be alone with that material for that time is really precious.

HULLFISH: Certain directors are very much: “Let’s do a pass where you do it the way you feel.” And other people are completely: “I know this scene in my head already, all I need is this. I just need a pickup because I know this is exactly the way I want this word to be pronounced and we’re done.”

WALSH: Patty is definitely in that latter camp. She’s meticulous about how a word is pronounced. The weight of delivery; where the emphasis falls. She’s very much about the language and the writing.

HULLFISH: Lots of people have said the editor/director relationship is very much like a marriage.

WALSH: At least at home you can walk out of the room …

HULLFISH: I’m going to let you cut that out if you need to stay married. How is a marriage between a director and an editor like a marriage between a husband and a wife.

WALSH: It’s an exaggeration isn’t it? We’re there to service the director’s vision. I like the word collaboration. Matthew was going for an interview on his movie a few weeks ago and he said, “What happens?” And I said, “What this is is an opportunity to look at each other and decide if you can spend the next six or nine months in a room together. It’s like a first date”

HULLFISH: Right.

WALSH: They’re not interviewing you really. They already know you can do the job or you wouldn’t be there. But do you want to spend that time in a room together? Is that going to be something you might enjoy doing? I have been to meetings where the director and I take one look at each other and spent the next half an hour wishing we had never gone into the room together; “Oh no, this is never going to work. I can’t do this job. What a shame because the script was good, but this is not going to work”

HULLFISH: Here are the reasons why I think it’s like a marriage and we can disagree which is fine ‘cause that’s the whole point. So editing is about communication, trust, and patience.

WALSH: Good.

HULLFISH: So the question is: are those similar in a marriage and a director/editor relationship?

WALSH:Yeah, absolutely.

HULLFISH: In those ways, but no other ways.

WALSH: Yes. Communication. If you are not going to share your feelings and your fears, desires, stresses and tension – the stress and tension can be immense.

HULLFISH: Especially on the director.

WALSH: Especially on the director. When you start previewing and turning it around fast and you’ve got a couple of weeks and you’ve got to shoot something, turn it around again, preview and change the music and new VFX come in and of course all right at the point when the director is away doing press the trust has to be there because they have to leave the editor with it and trust that the work is going to get done.

HULLFISH: We were talking a little about Matthew’s interview. What about your interview? How did you get this gig? Did she like some of your previous work or was there just a good chemistry in the interview?

WALSH: Yeah, I think to be honest with you I was the only person available at the time.

HULLFISH: (laughs) I was available and they didn’t pick me.

WALSH: I have worked for Warners before. They were shooting here in the UK, and because all of post was UK-based they needed to hire a UK-based editor. Of the editors around in November 2015 I guess I came out in front of everybody else. I met PJ on a location scout at the Savoy Hotel in London. We had coffee and spent about an hour together and we got on really well. We still do believe it or not. We got to the end of 18 months still liking each other a lot. We had a great time.

HULLFISH: One of those things that I think is really interesting with editors and directors is the ones that have worked with each other multiple times. You did a couple of projects with Kenneth Branagh right?

WALSH: Yes.

HULLFISH:You must’ve liked each other enough to work together.

WALSH: Yeah, I love Ken. He’s in post on Murder on the Orient Express, which I couldn’t do because it was too soon and I was too late. We tried to work it out but we couldn’t, so someone else is doing that one.

HULLFISH: Ann Coates should do it.

WALSH: Ann Coates did the original with Sidney Lumet in 1974. Ken is playing Poirot in this version. We are going to get together again hopefully early next year to do Artemis Fowl for Disney. We did Cinderella for Disney which was good for them, so they came back to Ken with Artemis Fowl, so that’s next February.

HULLFISH: Getting back to Wonder Woman, do you remember what you temped with? What’s your approach or opinion on adding temp music and when you do it.

WALSH: A lot of the temp came from Patty. She had very fixed ideas about what she wanted to hear. And a lot of that stuck until quite late in the process. She’s a huge Hans Zimmer fan. Who isn’t? If Patty and I had any difference of opinion it was usually about music. We still have differences of opinion about the final mix even after Rupert Gregson Williams had written his score. We have differences about music and the way music is used. It’s such a subjective area, isn’t it?

HULLFISH: Yes. So that’s an interesting sentence you just said about music and how it is used. What is the purpose of that music and how do you actually use the music?

WALSH: I personally would use less. I really enjoy – where possible – allowing actors to do their job without the assistance of music telling me what I need… what they want me to think… I find a lot of movies these days are over scored. I guess that’s what I’m saying: that there is just too much music.

HULLFISH: There are some directors who don’t want any temp at all until the screenings. Have you worked with anybody like that?

WALSH: No. I find most people these days are so used to using temp music and have such a strong opinion about music that they expect music from the outset. It’s a bit of an issue.

HULLFISH: In our last conversation, we talked a little about temp music and you talked about how you have gone to other people’s movies and thought, “Well they temped with Hans Zimmer…”

WALSH: Exactly.

HULLFISH: That just happened to me with somebody that I interviewed for Art of the Cut. I watched their movie and I said, “Oh my gosh! That’s the score from Sicario!They had to have temped with Sicario.” Sure enough, I asked the editor and he said, “Oh yeah, we temped with a lot of Sicario.”

WALSH: It’s a great score, but instantly recognizable. You can’t take a score like Sicario and have it not sound like Sicario. It’s so distinctive.

HULLFISH: You’re forcing the composer’s hand.

WALSH: You are and there’s nothing I can do about it because that’s somebody else’s call. I wish we could do it another way but we can’t.  You can’t go to a preview without a fully finished movie effectively.

HULLFISH: I’m cutting right now and the composer and I made an agreement that I would send him the reels without temp.

WALSH: At least that way he’ll get a perspective on how the movie plays without being swayed in some way by those choices. We had lots of music editors on Wonder Woman because we worked a little bit in LA and a little in the UK and at one point we had four music editors working simultaneously: two in the UK and two in LA, all coming at it from a different perspective and all trying to make their own impact.

Patty was really tough to shift. She had her favorite pieces and they stayed for a long, long time .

HULLFISH: Was she pulling that stuff from other soundtracks.

WALSH: A lot of it was music from when she was writing. She writes with that music playing. So it was hard to shift her, and even when we got into scoring she found that it was very hard to separate herself from the temp.

HULLFISH: One last question for you but its a big one. This movie is a lot of big action sequences. How do you approach those? You walk in – you’ve already seen all the dailies on the big screen – and then you sit down to those same dailies in your edit suite. What happens when you sit down at the Avid?

WALSH: It’s pretty straight forward. There is so much preparation in that area. Most of the action is shot by the second unit and stunt people for the fight scenes, so they’ve been heavily choreographed and before I’ve got involved, they have usually been stunt-vizzed. Meaning that the stunt department has shot the sequence already with stunt performers and I can take that from them and copy it – to a certain extent – and then adjust from that point on.  So things like speed ramps can be played around with and motion effects, all that kind of stuff, camera shake, and motion blur we can add later. However, there is a sequence in Wonder Woman of the first World War trenches that you can’t choreograph past a certain point. You can choreograph sections of it where Wonder Woman is involved, but then there is the general melee of battle. That’s a case of just sitting down, going through the material and whittling it down to the best pieces to tell the story. With those sequences – as you know from your experience – you start with the best bits of the British soldiers – the best bits of the Germans soldiers. You select that and then you boil down and simmer until you’ve got it down to whatever it is now – about 5 or 6 minutes – just simple editing by omission.

HULLFISH: How are you doing that? Are you creating selects reels and then using the select reels as a source to create your sequence?

WALSH: Yeah, that’s what I do. We are shooting with multiple cameras so you might have 4 cameras or 5 cameras on a section of  the British soldiers coming out of the trenches and charging across no-man’s land. Several takes, several resets, lots of different sizes and angles, lenses, tracks, cranes – you name it. It’s just a case of running each camera to find the best pieces in each take. Whatever hits you: “I like the fall, like the hit, someone hitting the floor and the mud splashes…”  Things you react to. I just clip them and join them all end to end. It’s pretty old fashioned. It’s what we used to do in the old days. You’d just pull a little bit of film out of a roll and stick it on another roll. That’s the technique I use and subbing it down to a point where you’ve got everything you need to tell the story and nothing more.

HULLFISH: When you cut a simpler scene like a romance scene or a little  conversation between the romantic leads, are you using  that same techniques or are you going to your bins or do you still create select reels?

WALSH: No, that’s just gut reaction stuff.  I usually decide what I’m going to use while I’m in the dailies screening room for a simpler sequence. If there are three takes of a line that I can’t decide about, I’ll just string 1,2,3 back to back and just play them and throw out the one that’s the loser.

HULLFISH: I saw a lot of slow mo stuff in the trailer. How do you determine when you can get in and out of a slow mo section? Because you’re really playing with time at that point.

WALSH: Patty liked to shoot that at 500 frames per second so that we can manipulate it later. She isn’t a big fan of that technique of chopping high speed into slow mo back out to normal speed. There was a conscious decision to make Wonder Woman’s action as elegant and feminine as possible, which I know is a contradiction when that elegance is kicking the sh*t out of German soldiers but that’s what we tried to do: use slow mo when it’s about highlighting a character to look their best. There’s no point in slowing something down if it’s going to look ugly or clumsy and it makes the actor look like they don’t know what they are doing. So it’s about making careful choices.

HULLFISH: Martin, I really appreciate your time.

WALSH: Good to talk

Thanks to Charles Shin, Todd Peterson and Hajar Elfared from Moviola for transcribing this interview.

To read more interviews in the Art of the Cut series, check out THIS LINK and follow me on Twitter @stevehullfish

The first 50 Art of the Cut interviews have been curated into a book, “Art of the Cut: Conversations with Film and TV editors.” The book is not merely a collection of interviews, but was edited into topics that read like a massive, virtual roundtable discussion of some of the most important topics to editors everywhere: storytelling, pacing, rhythm, collaboration with directors, approach to a scene and more. Oscar nominee, Dody Dorn, ACE, said of the book: “Congratulations on putting together such a wonderful book.  I can see why so many editors enjoy talking with you.  The depth and insightfulness of your questions makes the answers so much more interesting than the garden variety interview.  It is truly a wonderful resource for anyone who is in love with or fascinated by the alchemy of editing.” MPEG’s Cinemontage magazine said of the book: “Steve Hullfish knows how to talk with editors.…creates a mosaic of advice that will interest both veterans and newcomers to the field. It will be especially valuable for those who aspire to join what Hullfish calls, “the brotherhood and sisterhood of editors.” CinemaEditors Magazine says, “For the novice editor, this book is essential… For the more experienced editor there is plenty of useful information in it… Hullfish’s book is an awesome piece of text editing itself. The results make me recommend it to all. I am placing this book on my shelf of editing books and I urge others to do the same.”

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[myfoxny]

Federal judges express skepticism about Trump travel ban

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A panel of appeals court judges reviewing President Donald Trump's travel ban hammered away Tuesday at the federal government's arguments that the states cannot challenge the order. The hearing before the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals judges was the greatest legal challenge yet to the ban, which has upended travel to the U.S. for more than a week and tested the new administration's use of executive power. The government asked the court to restore Trump's order, contending that the president alone has the power to decide who can enter or stay in the United States. But several states have fought the ban on travelers from seven predominantly Muslim nations and insisted that it is unconstitutional. The judges -- two Democratic appointees and one Republican -- repeatedly questioned Justice Department lawyer August Flentje on why the states should not be able to sue on behalf of their residents or on behalf of their universities, which have complained about students and faculty getting stranded overseas. Circuit Judge Michelle T. Friedland, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, asked whether the government has any evidence connecting the seven predominantly Muslim nations covered by the ban to terrorism. Flentje told the judges that the case was moving fast and the government had not yet included evidence to support the ban. Friedland asked if the government had connected any immigrants from the seven countries to terrorism. Flentje cited a number of Somalis in the U.S. who, he said, had been connected to the al-Shabab terrorist group terror group after judges asked for evidence about the ban. Flentje said the president has broad powers to protect national security and the right to assess risks based on the actions of Congress and his predecessor during the last two years. The final minutes of the hearing were largely devoted to whether the travel ban was intended to discriminate against Muslims. Judge Richard Clifton wanted to know how the order could be considered discriminatory if it potentially affected only 15 percent of the world's Muslims, according to his calculations. In response, Washington state Solicitor General Noah Purcell said that it's remarkable to have this much evidence of discriminatory intent this early in the case. He cited Trump's campaign statements about a Muslim ban and public statements by adviser Rudy Giuliani that he was asked to help devise a legal version of the Muslim ban. A Justice Department lawyer argued that the courts should not question the president's authority over national security based on newspaper articles. But under questioning from Clifton, he did not dispute that the statements were made. Purcell said a previous ruling that halted the executive order has not harmed the U.S. government. Instead, he told the panel, the order had harmed Washington state residents by splitting up families, holding up students trying to travel for their studies and preventing people from visiting family abroad. Judge Richard R. Clifton said he suspects it's a "small fraction" of the state's residents. The court was not expected to rule immediately, with a decision more likely to come later this week, court spokesman David Madden said. Whatever the court eventually decides, either side could ask the Supreme Court to intervene. Trump said Tuesday that he cannot believe his administration has to fight in the courts to uphold his refugee and immigration ban, a policy he says will protect the country. "And a lot of people agree with us, believe me," Trump said at a round table discussion with members of the National Sheriff's Association. "If those people ever protested, you'd see a real protest. But they want to see our borders secure and our country secure." Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly told lawmakers that the order likely should have been delayed at least long enough to brief Congress about it. The filing with the appeals court was the latest salvo in a high-stakes legal fight surrounding Trump's order, which temporarily suspends the country's refugee program and immigration from seven countries with terrorism concerns. Washington state, Minnesota and other states say the appellate court should allow a temporary restraining order blocking the travel ban to stand as their lawsuit moves through the legal system. If the case does end up before the Supreme Court, it could prove difficult to find the necessary five votes to undo a lower court order. The Supreme Court has been at less than full strength since Justice Antonin Scalia's death a year ago. The last immigration case that reached the justices ended in a 4-4 tie. How and when a case might get to the Supreme Court is unclear. The travel ban itself is to expire in 90 days, meaning it could run its course before a higher court takes up the issue. Or the administration could change it in any number of ways that would keep the issue alive. ___ Tucker reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Martha Bellisle and Gene Johnson in Seattle, Matthew Barakat in Chantilly, Virginia, Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Colleen Slevin in Denver and Mark Sherman in Washington contributed to this report. http://dlvr.it/NK3xdw