Suggestions on making this query/code more performant

In answering my own question I have decide to go the pure SQL query route as WP runs too many queries in fetching a post and its attached post thumbnail, in addition to fetching and building meta for that thumbnail.

Here is the code I ended up with:

$query2 = "SELECT post.ID, post.post_title, thumbnail_url.meta_value as thumbnail_url 
           FROM $wpdb->posts as post 
           LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->postmeta as thumbnail 
           ON post.ID = thumbnail.post_id AND thumbnail.meta_key = '_thumbnail_id' 
           LEFT OUTER JOIN $wpdb->postmeta as thumbnail_url 
           ON thumbnail.meta_value = thumbnail_url.post_id 
           AND thumbnail_url.meta_key = '_wp_attached_file' 
           WHERE 1 = 1 
           AND post.post_type="zxy_movie" 
           AND post.post_status="publish" 
           ORDER BY post.post_title ASC";

 $posts = $wpdb->get_results( $query2, OBJECT );

Please note: This is still and expensive query and I do not recommend it on large sites.