Japanese Harry Potter (news - web sites) fans crowd around a sales person holding Harry Potter's brooms, 'Nimbus 2001', during an exhibition called, 'Harry Potter's World' held at a department store in Tokyo, November 14, 2002. The second installment of t
LEWISTON, Maine - The Flagship Cinemas, where decorative wizards dangle from the ceiling on cardboard broomsticks, are ready for box office magic. The fantasy film ''Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets'' opens nationwide today with enough cinematic witchcraft to fill three screens here, 10 times a day, until the Warner Brothers spell wears off.
But in a small ministry across this mid-Maine city, the mood is not of devilish good humor. There, in the headquarters of the Oneness Pentecostal Church, the Rev. Douglas Taylor sees the hand of the devil in the appeal of the Harry Potter books and films. A public ''book-cutting'' took place at which Taylor and five other pastors tore a copy of the J. K. Rowling book, on which the film is based, to shreds last night before a clapping audience of 100 people at a local hotel.
''It's no secret I enjoy what I'm doing now,'' said Taylor, who added that he...
