My First Cinespia Experience (or Watching “Speed” In A Cemetery)

I’ve lived in LA for almost 15 years now, so I feel like I’ve done a lot of the things that people love to do in LA. I go to the Pantages, I go to the Bowl, I go to the beach, and I go to the mountains. I go to a lot of movie screenings (mainly thanks to my union) and I get to do a lot of fun adventures quite a bit! Most of the time when I see lists of the top things to do in LA, I’ve done all of them. But there was one thing that it seems like everyone does that I hadn’t done until this past weekend: Cinespia screenings.

Cinespia organizes some pretty amazing movie screenings, but I never had gone to one before. I believe they have screenings throughout the year, but their most popular ones are the summer ones at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. I’ve actually driven past the cemetery on screening nights and seen the huge crowds there lined up to get into the cemetery. It seemed a bit overwhelming but fun at the same time.

So when my friend Erin asked me if I wanted to join her and some friends to a screening of the movie “Speed” at Hollywood Forever cemetery this past weekend and I figured this was a perfect opportunity to check out what the screenings are all about. I got my ticket online and got some picnic stuff together for Saturday’s fun.

I got to the cemetery a little more than an hour before we could go inside. There was a big line in front where you wait before you have your tickets checked, and one of Erin’s friends had gotten there early and got us a good space. So I met up with everyone and we sat down and waiting for the gates to open so we could go inside.

Once we got inside, I really didn’t know what to expect. A couple of people went ahead to claim a good spot for us to put our blankets down at, but I walked a bit slower with some of the other stragglers. I wanted to check out the cemetery plus I was carrying a bunch of stuff and couldn’t go that quickly.

The cemetery was pretty cool, but so many of the headstones had headshots or photos on them and I thought that was a bit different. I don’t have a ton of experience being in cemeteries, but from the few I’ve been in I don’t remember so many photos of people on their graves. But it was still interesting to look at and some of the people buried there were buried a very long time ago.

Once we walked around the cemetery we got to where the screening was going to take place. We got a pretty good place to put our stuff down and once we got all the blankets out a couple of us went wandering around. The cemetery is pretty beautiful so I’m glad we got to explore a bit.

We went looking around at the various graves to see who was buried there. There are quite a few famous people who are buried there, but the first “celebrity” marker that caught our eyes was the one for Toto.

We also saw Mickey Rooney and Hitchcock, but I didn’t get pictures of those. And as we were walking back toward where the screening was happening, we saw the photo setup they had for the movie. We were all hoping it would be some sort of bus, but it was a bus stop and I think we got a pretty amazing photo as a group.

At the end of the night (after the credits of the movie aired) they put a couple of the photos up on the big screen to show off and our photo was one of maybe 10 that they chose to do that with. I don’t know if that means we were one of the top 10 photos of the night, but we felt pretty special.

Once the photos were done, it was starting to get dark so we headed back to our blankets to get settled in before the movie started.

We also all brought some food with us to share, so we were eating while we waited for 9pm which is when the movie was supposed to start (I brought the feta dip I make for Thanksgiving).

Once the movie started, it was pretty exciting. We had an ok view of the movie (the people in the chairs in front of us blocked our view a bit) but I have seen “Speed” so many times that I was ok not having a perfect view.

The crowd was very energetic and it was so exciting to watch a movie this way. At the screenings I usually go to, people are quiet and trying to be respectful. This screening had people cheering and yelling at the screen and it was so much fun!

The only negative to me (besides having a partially blocked view) was my lack of preparation to be there. I brought a nice beach blanket with me and I thought that would be fine. But I wish I had brought something to lean against or one of the camping seats that are on the ground but have a back to them. I was getting a bit locked up in my hips and toward the end of the night I was starting to be in a decent amount of pain. But since I had never been to a screening like this before, I didn’t know what to expect and now I’m more prepared.

I’m so glad that Erin invited me to join her for this screening! It was such a fun night out and while I don’t know if I’ll make it to another screening this summer I’m totally going to do this again!

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