Sounds like I can start dusting off my old bar mitzvah comedy "Heaven Forbid," which clocked in around 145 pages! Multi-character piece about a weekend bar mitzvah that goes terribly awry and plays out like Altman's Nashville...

...er, on second thought, maybe not. Too many of my relatives would be awfully put off...

As far as I'm concerned, Apatow's got the chops to pull off an "epic." The enitre enterprise sounds teriffic.

If anyone can get away with a 2 and half hour comedy it's Judd Apatow. Hope he pulls it off, as a lot of my scripts run long -- though not over-written.

The key is can Judd pull off 2 and a half hours and not be bloatted. Does he have enough STORY to justify two and a half hours? Should be interesting to see if that's the case. IF not, he still has time to edit it down, and use the extra footage as bait for DVD sales later on.

- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

130 minutes I could see, but 150 minutes? That would make me think twice about watching the movie. It would just be too bloated. Too many people think that being able to write is all it's about, but being able to edit is a true gift.

Jeff, "Heaven Forbid" sounds like a winner.

Or like the Coen brothers, whose director's cut for Blood Simple shaved like a minute-and-a-half off the original, completely contrary to any other director's cut, which always adds minutes, hours, days to their original cuts.

Mighty kind of you to say, Alissa, and it certainly is a script that's close to my heart but...

It's an uber dark comedy that would, I'm sure, piss off no less than my parents, my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, and, more than likely, the entire B'nai B'rith.

It was fun, though. It covered a family bar mitzvah that was no less than a weekend Roman festival of pure human degredation replete with gallons of booze, marital discord, a suicidal funeral director, a nearly defrocked rabbi, hookers, hypnotists, and a potential mob hit.

And yet, oddly enough, I felt it was actually a rather spiritual script...

I think it's funny how Judd Apatow is so revered nowadays. I have been a big fan for years, and as soon as 40 Year Old Virgin came out, I foresaw his ensuing career trajectory pretty accurately. But he's certainly not infallible, by a long shot! I think that almost everything he's done, aside from Freaks and Geeks, betrays a lack of self-discipline. Which makes me doubt that Funny People will really benefit from being so long.