The taser thing and another Villain

He ran, he dropped, he twitched:
17-year old Philly fan jumps onto the field, runs across the outfield, eludes the grasp of the bumbling and wheezing stadium security guards, traipses in circles waving his t-shirt, and shortly thereafter is blasted by a Philadelphia officer's taser and drops like a sack of rocks.  People on the radio and television are still wondering if the use of the taser was appropriate or excessive, and the Philadelphia police department has issued their support of the officer's decision.

This one was quite easy for me to categorize.  If anyone should be foolish enough to jump onto the field of play during any major sporting event, the use of tasers should be allowed at the officer's discretion.  Unless ballparks start filling their security ranks with the fastest, most athletic guards capable of running down any on-field violater, there isn't much recourse.  The officers are trained in the use of this equipment, and as stated in the Philly case, the weapon was used because the initial attempts to tackle the kid were (quite humorously) unsuccessful.

Will the prospect of getting filled with 50,000 volts be the ultimate deterrent to someone who really wants to get on the field?  No.  Will it always stop a maniac from racing to the first or third baseman with the intent to harm the players?  Probably not.  But, it should remain an option.  It allows the police force a way in which to trump the usually less-than-agile crack security forces manning the field, and hopefully, keep the length of the disruption to a minimum.

Also, there's the added bonus of being able to watch those foolish people twitch, face down on the grass, the following day on the internet.

==========

Villainy!
Teddy 'KGB,' Rounders

Identifying the one, true antagonist in Rounders is difficult.  On the one side is the devilish side of Mike's conscience, his long time friend and newly-paroled cheater, Worm.  Worm is the voice in Mike's ear, urging him back into the hazy poker rooms filled with the tourists who desperately need someone to take their money.  Furthermore, Worm doesn't insist that they play the game on the straight, but thirsts for the rush that accompanies hustling.  One could certainly argue that Mike himself is part of the problem here, due to his exceptionally poor decisions.

However, the most solid and identifiable villain of this film would be that of the Russian poker madman, Teddy KGB.  Malkovich's KGB lies at the end of each debt, and every bad decision Mike fumbles his way through, culminating with one final game that should Mike lose, the Russian won't let him walk away with his hands in his penniless pockets.  Mike simply would not be heard from again.

The beauty of Malkovich's many roles is that you immediately feel that you're watching a tangible, complete character develop on screen, rather than watching the actor John Malkovich play a character.  Beneath each of his creations is a roiling emotion that inevitably explodes at some point, and the fun is precisely that anticipation of when the explosion will happen, and what the outcome will be.  In Rounders, we are immediately close to Mike, and desperately hope that when KGB bursts that Mike will make it out in one piece.