“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley.” ― Robert Burns, Collected Poems of Robert Burns
It’s early afternoon here in Lithia, Florida, on Sunday, February 26, 2023. I went to bed sometime after 3 AM and I slept till just past 8 AM, so I am (a) still a bit tired, and (b) behind my usual writing schedule, although (admittedly) not as far behind as I was yesterday. As a result, I will write just a short post today; I don’t want to sit at my desk till dinner time – which is what I normally do – and spend a lot of time online. I have other things I’d like to do, and if I stick to my daily routine, they will not get done.
Anyway, last night I ended up not watching either The Fabelmans or The Fugitive. I had the package with the multi-format (4K UHD/2K HD Blu-ray of Steven Spielberg’s 2022 family drama out on the table in front of the family room TV set, and in a pinch I could have watched it on Amazon Prime Video if I didn’t want to bother with the disc (I would have to play the 2K disc since the only TV/player combo that can play the 4K disc is in my room). But my movie-watching mood is fickle, and I ended up not watching The Fabelmans.
I also did not watch Andrew Davis’ The Fugitive, a 1993 suspense thriller that compresses the story arc of an entire 1960s TV series into a feature film. Starring Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano, Jeroen Krabbe, and – in an early role – Julianne Moore, The Fugitive is the story of Chicago surgeon Dr. Richard Kimble (Ford), a man unjustly accused and convicted of killing his wife Helen, and his efforts to find the real killer while on the run from U.S. Marshals led by Sam Gerard (Jones).
Maybe if I hadn’t watched this film as many times as I have – I saw it at the movies with some of my friends when it was released in 1993, and I’ve rewatched it often on VHS, DVD, and Blu-ray – I might have watched it last night. The night before last I watched the behind-the-scenes stuff that comes with the 2013 20th Anniversary Blu-ray, so I believed that I was going to watch The Fugitive either last night or today.
Well, I could watch The Fugitive today – I have all afternoon to do that in after I hit the Publish button on this blog post – if I want. But…as demonstrated by what happened last night, I might end up watching The Fabelmans…or something entirely different.
So, what did I watch last night instead of my Plan A and Plan B picks for Saturday Night at the Movies?
Manhunt: The Inside Story of the Hunt for Bin Laden, a 2013 documentary produced for HBO Documentaries, directed by Greg Barker and executive produced by Nancy Abraham, Sheila Nevins, and Peter Bergen (who wrote the non-fiction book Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad).
This 1 hour and 42-minute film consists of interviews with some of the key Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) analysts and FBI Special Agent Ali Soufan, mixed with archival footage of newscasts on CNN (for which Bergen worked for many years), Al-Qaeda recruiting videos, and even a few images from the DVDs and computer hard drives found by U.S. Navy SEALs in Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, during the May 1, 2011 raid (Operation Neptune Spear) to kill the infamous terrorist leader, Osama Bin Laden,
Although Manhunt is a well-made and nicely paced documentary, it focuses exclusively on the CIA/FBI efforts to find Bin Laden after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. It’s not boring, and the cat-and-mouse game between the hunters and the hunted deserved maybe a full two-hour running time, but I wish the film had also covered Operation Neptune Spear in more detail.
Even though I started watching Manhunt at 8:30 PM, there were a few times when I dozed off just a bit and I missed a few scenes here and there. Luckily, it’s on DVD so I can rewatch it whenever I want.
I think, though, that those mini-naps I took involuntarily last night contributed a bit to the bout of insomnia that followed when I made my way to my room after I watched Manhunt. I’m sure that there’s more to my sleepless nights, such as worries over my future and whether I will ever be in a relationship again. Either way, even though I was sleepy sometime before 11 PM, by 11:20 PM I was once again awake and too alert. Plus, I only slept for five hours, max.
Therefore, I’m tired, I have a mild headache, and I just want to take it easy for the rest of this last Sunday of February 2023, so that’s what I will do today.
On that note, then, I’ll take my leave of you, Dear Reader. Until next time, stay safe and healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
I’ve seen the Fugitive a couple of times. It is a good movie. I have yet to see The Fabelmans and Manhunt. I hope you will sleep better tomorrow night.
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I slept better last night than I did on Saturday.
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