Warning: Fairly pointless rant to follow. Read at the risk of wasting your own time.

I just got done watching the Clint Eastwood-directed film "Mystic River," based on a great book by Dennis Lehane. Sean Penn won Best Actor for his role in the movie last year, and when it started getting a lot of publicity, I decided to read the book, even though I'm not usually big on crime dramas. Aside from good plot, the book is written in a way that just makes you deeply nervous for some reason, even before you know why. It gave me the feeling right from the start that something very, very bad was coming for all the characters. And of course, if you've seen the movie, you know that I was right. The book is incredible and I would highly reccomend it. It's hard to create that kind of ominous aura in print, and so I was eager, if somewhat afraid, to see the movie. Today, I finally got around to it.
Before I get to the point of this post, let me make a few disclaimers: the movie is good. Sean Penn earned his Oscar. He's perfect for the character, and he does a great job with it. Tim Robbins also more than deserved his Oscar just for managing to disturb you more at times in the film than Sean Penn does, and Kevin Bacon was also great. I have no beef with the way the story was adapted for film, because I understand this is a movie. Considering the butchery that is usually in store for good books turned into movies, this was OK.
What I have BIG issues with is the music. Music is incredibly important in films, because whereas Dennis Lehane had 400 or so pages to make you feel nervous, a film has maybe 30 seconds to put you in the proper frame of mind for a scene. And how you feel is very important in the context of a movie like this that has intense characters, intense plot lines, and some moments of drama that ought to be just short of painful. Notice I say "ought to be." Because while the acting, writing, and filming of this movie are perfectly aligned to make you feel like you should feel, about 20 minutes into the movie I started to notice that someone, and I was trying really hard not to blame Clint, but someone chose music for this film that I promise you could have worked just as well as a backdrop for mild moments of tension in a Disney cartoon. It sounds like nothing. Like every movie you've ever seen. Like every movie you ever flipped past on a trip through your TV channels. Like ELEVATOR MUSIC for crying out loud. Maybe I pay too much attention to music, but to me, it was distractingly bad at moments.
So bad that after watching the movie, I got online and started googling around to find out who was responsible. And do you know what I found out? CLINT EASTWOOD WROTE THIS GARBAGE. Not just chose it, wrote it. And put it in the movie. And no one stopped him! I don't know why that makes it seem worse to me, but it does.
If you've never seen Mystic River, please don't think I'm saying it's not excellent. Because it is. But now that I've brought it up, I dare you to sit through the movie without wanting to weep for how good it could have been with music that had anything even resembling a backbone. Let me know how it goes.
I'm off to write a letter to Clint Eastwood.