Fairly or unfairly, it’s my expectation that sitting through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros., 7.11) will be less than fully transporting. (I got off the train after Alfonso Cuaron‘s Prisoner of Azkaban segment back in ’04.)
Given this prejudice, I’d rather see it at next Monday’s IMAX screening on the assumption that the general hugeness and clarity of this process will probably make Pheonix feel more involving on some level. There’s just one problem: Warner Bros. publicists are insisting that journos won’t be allowed to see it in IMAX unless they’ve first seen Phoenix in regular 35mm.
If Nehemiah Persoff‘s gangster character in Some Like It Hot could be inserted into this situation, he would bend over, adjust his hearing aid and then say to the WB staffers, “You mean I have to see this movie….twice?”