Shandling biopic could have been a great 2-hour movie; instead it's 4.5 hours LONG

The Zen Diaries of Garry Shandling, Judd Apatow's HBO documentary about the life and career of the comedian, would have made a great 2-hour movie, but sadly Apatow, showing neither respect for his viewers nor faith in his ability to select from copious raw material, stretches this bio-worship-pic into an astonishing 4 1/2 hours. I literally could not make it to this finish, which is a shame because there's so much good, original material here - especially material on GS's early career as he gradually moved from a spec-script writer to a stand-up to a comic actor. Apatow, a close friend of Shandling's (who is not shy about grabbing his own screentime in this pic), had access to a vast amount of material, including stuff from the HBO vaults, from GS's own collections, and lots of backstage stuff from GS's two cable shows, plus extensive interviews w/ almost everyone who ever worked w/ GS. If he could only have edited this material - kept the best stuff, avoided the pointless repetitions - and maybe build some supplements and extras for those who really want to know more, as in a Criterion disc. In any event, the essence of the story is that GS was wounded for life by the death of his older brother, which his parents refused to discuss, and the consequent smothering attention from his mother. He left home for LA where he started writing spec scripts, gradually made the rounds of clubs, became a terrific stand-up (the doc shows among many other great clips his first appearance the Tonight Show), which of course led to opportunities such as sub-hosing on Tonight and elsewhere. But this wasn't enough for GS, who was always pushing the envelope, and himself - he wanted to improve as an actor, eventually developing two cable shows. The doc is a little short on these shows, not quite making the case that he was so groundbreaking and influential, and inevitably the narrative runs out of gas as Shandling's career (and health) wanes - made very painful when we see his extremely awkward and unfunny appearance on Conan, who tries (and fails) to save the day. To the end, Shandling's greatest success is as a writer, as we see from his late-life hosing of the Emmys - hysterical! - and by his furious and eccentric note-taking before every appearance, including an all-star night with Chris Rock and Seinfeld. Wish I could say this film is worth seeing; maybe just watch part one and fill in the blanks.