by Patrick Ball

Young Patrick and his favourite (at the time)

In the winter of 2001-2002, I was a plucky 8th grade “star” of my basketball team, son of a football coach, and an emerging film fan obsessed with all things James Bond, Star Wars, and Tom Cruise. A blissful innocent, bumbling around the world in a haze of All American normalcy. It would be my final year of innocence.

That following winter I would be clutched by the gay agenda, indoctrinated into a world of actresses, wig styling, and the unending delights of the beleaguered 1950s housewife. I would be snatched out of the closet by the twin hands of The Hours and Chicago, never to return. But as much as my love of film would come to be irrevocably shaped by a Zeta jazz square and a stroll into the river Ouse, one film lingered in my memory from the before times. I carry it with me to this day as a fond curio, a faded photo from the old country; That movie was A Beautiful Mind...