Our seats kinda sucked (3rd row and my neck's still bothering from spending 2-3 hours looking up). But the movie smoked! Yes, there are lots of bits and business that are just gone. The book's the first from the sprawling portion of the series and it was obvious that many things would have to be jettisoned. And structurally, I think the movie actually works better than the book. The two most important, for me, were that the more compact structure actually makes the whole "Barty Crouch is Madeye Moody" thread work much better. In the book, there's so much other stuff between the tidbits of info, that by the time it was revealed my reaction was something along the lines of "huh? who? what in the what now?" Similarly, the onscreen momentum just hurtles you right past the "Triwizard Cup is a portkey" which is, as others far wiser than I have pointed out, a device of Rube Goldberg proportions (that is, a big clunky device whose main purpose is to be big and clunky). And I think they did an excellent job of getting across the whole Ron v. Harry subplot in a few scenes without dragging us thru scene after scene of one or the other of them being petulant and stupid. It gives me hope that they'll be able to do similar with the petulant, annoying Harry of Order of the Phoenix.
I hold to my opinion that Goblet of Fire is the weakest of the novels. I don't feel Rowling was fully in command to how to handle a book of that size. Mike Newell (director) and Steve Kloves (writer) mostly do right by the plot and the characters and do much better jobs of structuring the story. That cuts out most of the Quidditch World Cup, the elder Barty Crouch's gambling, most of Rita Skeeter, and (honestly) much more. There are a few things missing that I think will give the writers and directors of the next two movies a bit of tap dancing to do. Sarah's right that the absence of the whole house-elf liberation movement, and esp. of Winky, leaves a big hole in the plot. And also we've not seen what Hermoine has to hold over the head of Rita Skeeter. I was thinking that Cho was criminally underwritten in the movie (as David Edelstein observed on Slate, she has a charming accent but no personality) but actually that's fairly true to the book. It's really in the next book that she's more of a character than just a crush object for Harry. Also missing-in-action: Percy Weasley, whose transformation in the next book/movie is now not going to have much context.
Things I liked: dragons(!!); dance lesson; late-in-party scene with Ron and Harry rudely ignoring the Patel sisters; Durmstrang ship; snappy Death Eater half-masks; tricksy 7-box trapping the real Moody; scene where Snape keeps smacking Harry & Ron upside the head; Filch announcing arrival of Durmstrang & Beauxbatons; all scenes with Fred and George; Moody transmogrifying Malfoy into a ferret; Moaning Myrtle; Black Lake scene
Things I didn't like so much: tragic hairstyles of young Weasley men; hardly any Sirius Black; not enough Snape; no two-ton tongue; rock & roll dance party; Death Eaters in Klan hoods; it would've killed them to show someone else fighting a dragon... Fleur, Cedric, Krum... I'm not picky

one question that just popped into my head about the movie: did they mention the wrong Weasley delivering the dragons? I can't remember who they said in the movie and I need to go find the book and see who it was there.

one thing I can't remember now (cos it's late): has Viktor Krum showed up again in either books 5 or 6? Cos if not then I'd expect him to be showing up in book 7 then.