"THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW"-which now includes"MYSTIC RIVER"

I guess a really well edited movie might be called a well composed movie, as in music and painting. Composition in movies is probably less obvious because of the importance of story. In painting composition is far more obvious and in music it is, of course, everything.

I like DVDs cause they show , in alternate scene packages, some scenes and sections of scenes that were shot but edited out. editing is, in my opinion, an art that when done correctly, just takes the movie to another level, (or in the case of some real stinkers, it drags it down by flotsam)
In the special cut version of the Lord of the Rings -"Return..." , the editing wasnt very good and , in my mind, the entire movie suffered with irrelevant scenes that paid homage to Tolkiens books but didnt make for an interesting movie. i for one, found the entire LOTR, just a celebration of effects with a tiresome slavish "stick-to-tolkiens-book" plot line. It was made for 11 year olds who just had to see the book, IN m y case a 55 year old who read the books 30 years ago, I was kind of pod because the original story line wasnt adapted for a movie. It was more of a documentary
I agree that the composition aspect, when done well, is almost invisible in a movie. I like to look at a movie 2 times to look at the editing in the second go round. It interesting to see how scenes are made spare and , by doing so, carry the message well. In Mystic River, they ran that scene of the kidnapping 3 times, each at a turning point or terminus of a plot feature.
Also, there are scenes in which Robbins or penn are shot as if alone,(they were probably shot without anyone else to relate to) but Kevin Bacon was always shot with other people in the scene. That was deliberate, it related to the early lines that "we can help you with the dyin part , but you gotta die alone"

Very well crafted movie in all aspects. I miss movies that do things with the story and do not spend so much time being a cartoon. Maybe Im getting too old to be impressed with pure spectacle. Im convinced that, computer graphics are used mostly because they are available.
An example of the worst in CGI effects and no stoy was the recent movie "Pearl Harbor"

That was so bad as both a movie and as history. it relied on cGI so much that it could have starred Bugs Bunny for all I cared.

In mystic River, one thing wasnt answered to our satisfaction. How did the murder victims blood get in the trunk of Robbins car?

I haven't been to a flick house since I saw Amazon Women in the Avocado Jungle and realized it could never be surpassed.

I think I saw that on Mystery SCience Theater 3000. Of course it was being overshouted by those annoying puppets

I disagree that the LOTR movies are slavish to Tolkien and in fact many cinematic changes were made, the most notable being the Battle of Helm's Deep reoriented to the end of "The Two Towers."
The film was filmable only because of CGI and I thought it was used judiciously throughout (Golem is a CGI triumph).

I'd have to see "Mystic River" again for the blood in the trunk answer.

Thats too much of a detail to absorb wia. I found the pace of the "plot" mostly a time table of what I recall from the books and, my point, if one didnt read the books one would have a difficult time following thereasoning .
We do CGI because we can. I thought "who framed Roger Rabbit" was a better use of CGI, and it didnt tryt to make some Wagnerian points that are best left in a book.

There are a bunch of movies that are CGI / effects centered that I mostly disliked or laughed at

Gladiator
Crouching Tiger (laughed a bit)
Pearl Harbor (very dumb moviie- following a bomb to its target is kind of over the top)
Harry Potter (saw only the first)

Yeh, Id like your spin on Mystic River

"Roger Rabbit" was conventional animation seemlessly incorporated into the live action with established, mostly non-CGI techniques (the modeling or shading of the characters was done by CGI). An early film using these techniques was Disney's "Three Caballeros," still one of my favorite Disney films.

If you've read a book, the plot will always seem to me to be a "timetable" of events. I was gratified by the stunning art direction of the visuals, the soundtrack and the well-written dialogue so it didn't bother me all that much. It's an adventure story more than an action story because Tolkien writes the big action pieces with very short descriptive passages. I found it remarkable how Jackson's visualizations were so close to mine. I did find that the hobbits were more like Sean Astin than the other portrayals but it didn't spoil the films. LOTR will still go down in film history as an extraordinary event and if anyone is able to make a better fantasy film, well, it seems highly improbable. Disney, I believe, has the rights to the Narnia stories. Will they go CGI animation or live action is the question.

I finally saw the Day After... and I liked it. Not enough disaster for my liking, though. Who else thinks the VP bore a resemblance to Cheney?
Mystic River was amazing. I have recently read another of his books, I forget the title, something about one of the Boston Harbor islands and a mental institution. One of the best books ever!
Later on I'll look it up online and see if I can get the title, in case anyone is interested. I highly recommend it!

all i know is that the day after tomorrow was one of the most bad movies ive ever seen

Yes, Ty_88, a truly bad movie. But the ending was funny: the hospitality extended to us by Mexico as Americans swarmed across the Rio Grande.

I saw the Day After Tomorrow and thought it was crap, both the story and the gratuitious use of effects (When will Hollywood learn that effects do not make up for a lack of original plot). It was so 1-dimensional and illogical (Example: why would the wolves, apparently the only animals to escape from the zoo (how did they survive the flood?), in a town full of dead and dying people (= easy prey) come to this ship (how did they climb the vertical sides of the vessel?) at the precise moment that our heroes happen to be there?)

It was also far too clear from the start who were the heroes and who were the expendable extras, no suspense there either. In my opinion older films like Soylent Green present a far more haunting picture of the effect of environmental disaster than this flick.

And yes I did think it was no coincidence the veep looked like Cheney. It reminded me of how the bad guy in The 6th Day looked a lot like Bill Gates (add the satirical mention of Microsoft in the film and you have a statement).