Potter's 'Phoenix' flies into town

A woman waiting in line to see "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" interrupts Tiffany O'Day.

"Can you go over there?" the woman says, pointing away from the line.

O'Day, 16, had already seen the movie earlier that Wednesday at another opening and was starting to talk about a battle scene. Around noon, she went to see it again in Carson City, because she wanted to make sure she didn't miss anything. She was impressed.

"It was amazing," O'Day said. "It's more intense and there's a lot more action scenes. It's not all, like, teen angst. The first one was light-hearted and this one is really intense."

O'Day, who waited with a friend, was one of about 90 people at Northgate Movies 10 for the city's first showing of the film-adaptation of the fifth Harry Potter book.

O'Day has pre-ordered the seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." It will come out July 21.

Since hearing her teacher read her the first book in elementary school, the teenager has read all six books and seen the movies many times.

Though O'Day does like the movies, she said she likes the books better and a lot of details from those books are left out in the movies.

"Some of the major parts they just don't have ... like Hermione (a girl in the book), she makes her own club for house elves because she feels bad for them and they leave that out completely. Like, they don't even mention it."

The movies can ruin a reader's imagination, she said - "like how you saw it when you read it ... You talk about it after the movie like, 'Ah! I didn't see it like that.'"

Brittany Cook, 19, was at the front of the line an hour and a half before the movie started. Though she'd already read the book, she wanted to see how the movie interpreted it.

"It makes you upset," she said, "because you're hearing about it everywhere and you don't know what happens because you haven't seen it yet. So you get kind of, like, antsy."

Maryanne Baker, 16, who was waiting in line with Cook, said the movies can be disappointing compared with the books. She said one of the movies, for instance, turned a ballroom dance scene into a rave.

• Contact reporter Dave Frank at dfrank@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1212.

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix

PG-13, 148 min.

Northgate Movies 10, Carson City

Show times:

12:15 p.m., 12:45 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 6:45 p.m., 7:15 p.m., 9:50 p.m., 10:15 p.m.

Ironwood Cinema 8, Minden

Show times:

10:45 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 2:45 p.m., 3:45 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9:45 p.m.

Century Theater, Summit Sierra, South Reno

Show times

11:15 a.m., noon, 12:45 p.m., 1:35 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3:15 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:50 p.m., 5:45 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7:15 p.m., 8:05 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:45 p.m., 10:30 p.m.

Heavenly Village Cinema, South Lake Tahoe

Show times:

11 a.m., noon, 1 p.m. 2:30 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10p.m.

Coming soon

Galaxy Theaters at Casino Fandango

A 10-auditorium digital movie theater with stadium-style seating is set to open Aug. 3.

Galaxy Theaters will be at Casino Fandango in South Carson City. It will be the first all-digital theater in Northern Nevada, according to a press release.

Movies to premier that day at the $15 million multiplex include: "The Bourne Ultimatum," "Bratz: The Movie," "Underdog," "Hot Rod," "Charlie Bartlett" and "El Cantante."

Contact Casino Fandango at 885-7000 for information.