HDU (30 page)

It’s only been a couple hours
since its release, but it’s likely that you’ve already seen the artsy video
shot and edited by filmmaker Ian Marsh.
 
In a shaky, gritty and revealing four minutes, the short exposes Casey
Mulreed’s alleged addiction to a variety of substances.
 
Scenes range from prepping at home for
her What Was Left premiere with a naïve Amanda Nathan to flirting with Marsh
during the premiere’s after party (it appeared the two were alone in a private
room).

Since the fantastic film will no
doubt be pulled from the Web soon thanks to the Mulreed family’s pesky lawyers,
we at Pop Dinner would like to provide a transcript of our favorite quotes by
Casey! The film is chock full of juicy ones, including gems like, “I still feel
like [Lucy Holt], but when don’t I?”

Uh-oh… it’s never good when you
feel just like your suicidal addict of a film character! And if that isn’t
enough to confirm Mulreed’s probable addiction, she later says the following
when Marsh asks her if she deserves an Oscar for her raw portrayal of a dope
fiend:

“No, that wouldn’t be fair.
 
There wasn’t any acting involved besides
toning down the real me.”

Oh my!

When Marsh asks Mulreed what she
means by that, she responds with the juiciest line of all: “I’m exactly like my
f***ing family.
 
I tried my best
not to be, but I’ve been my whole life – worse than them, really.
 
No one has a clue though, and it’s like
I’m tricking the world.
 
I hate it.”

Whoops.
 
Looks like America’s sweetheart ain’t so sweet after all!

At Amanda’s request, Liam’s car took them both to
Ian’s apartment.
 
To her surprise,
there were already paparazzi there – and they were there just for Ian.
 
But of course, they didn’t at all mind
the fact that Amanda had shown up for them to badger.
 
Already, the questions were starting and they didn’t miss a
beat.

“Amanda, do you know if Casey is planning to go to
rehab?”

“Amanda, has Casey spoken to you at all? Is she
humiliated by all this?”

“Amanda, what do you know about Casey’s addiction?”

For once, the questions stumped Amanda.
 
She hadn’t known anything about Casey’s
alleged addiction until watching the film in the car on Liam’s phone.
 
Between hearing about it and finally
seeing it, it had gone officially viral, its Internet popularity by far
exceeding Amanda’s first and second blog entries combined.
 
The world was blindsided, shocked that
their beloved Casey Mulreed was not who she seemed.

But more surprising to Amanda than the addiction was
the fact that Casey had confessed to it on camera, and to a person she barely
knew.
 
She was known for her smarts
– how could she do something so stupid? But there were too many other
questions on Amanda’s mind to entertain that one for long.

To her relief, Ian promptly buzzed her up when she
pressed the button of his apartment number.
 
She had a feeling he would.
 
He had called before, which meant he
did
finally want to talk.
 
But when he opened the door for Amanda, his bloodshot eyes darted to
Liam.
 
“Why is
he
here?” he asked, his boozy breath wafting out into the hallway.

“Trust me, asshole, I don’t want to be,” Liam said
curtly.
 
With that, Ian shut the
door.
 

“Wait, Ian – ” Amanda wrapped her hand around the
doorknob just before he slammed it shut.
 
She let out a sharp gasp, her knuckles grating hard against the
doorframe.
 
She blinked down at
them, dizzy for a second.
 
Chunks
of skin had scraped clean off.
 
Within a second, there was blood.

“Amanda?” Ian opened the door a crack but in a flash,
it was propelled open by Liam.

“You asshole,” he grit his teeth, grabbing Ian by the
collar of his ratty T-shirt.
 
Ian
swung blindly, grunting as he tried to free himself from Liam’s powerful grip.
 
Amanda’s eyes fluttered from the drops
of her blood on the hallway tiles to the scene inside the apartment.
 
Ian’s limbs continued to flail as Liam
easily pinned him against the wall, but finally, his fist made contact with the
side of Liam’s head.

“
Stop
it!”
Amanda screeched, rushing in to separate them.
 
She squeezed herself between their bodies so Liam wouldn’t
knock Ian unconscious as she knew he could.
 
His chest heaved against her hand while Ian’s heart
pounded.
 
“Please! Just stop.
 
You let me in here to talk, Ian, can we
do that?” she asked as calmly as she could.

“Fine.”
 
Ian
shrugged with an attempt at nonchalance, regaining his balance and brushing the
hair out of his eyes.
 
Despite
being disoriented, his tongue was still sharp.
 
“Pretty sure he could’ve waited in the car if he didn’t want
to be here.”
 
Amanda groaned.
 
Liam sneered.

“Like I’d leave her alone with you.”

Ian’s nostrils flared for a second, but then he
turned his nose up and smirked.
 
“You’re
not even worth my fucking time, dude.”

“Oh my God, Ian, can you stop?” Amanda pleaded, pushing
his wobbly frame into his bedroom before Liam could respond.
 
It was messy, littered with takeout
containers, empty bottles and cans, and cigarette butts.
 
She eyed an open vial on his dresser
holding a powder that she suspected was cocaine.
 
“Jesus Christ, Ian, who are you trying to
be
these days? Seriously!” She stood
beside him as he took a seat at his desk, his focus back on his Macbook Pro,
which sat beside his camera and a couple hard drives.
 
“Why are you acting like this and doing stupid things like
pissing off Casey Mulreed and her people? She’s going to end you and your
career if you don’t take the video down
now
,
Ian, she told me!”

Her words only made him laugh.
 
“First of all, I didn’t do it to hurt
her feelings, it was a beautiful film and she looked beautiful in it too.”
 
Amanda groaned.
 
“Second, if she’s upset, then, oh well.
 
She was stupid enough to say all that
in front of me.”

Amanda recoiled at his callousness.
 
“She wasn’t being stupid, Ian, she was
upset and she
liked
you, if that
wasn’t obvious.
 
And you completely
exploited that.”

Ian shrugged.
 
“Worth it for this,” he said, scrolling through his phone and before holding
it to Amanda’s face.
 
It was a text
– from Natalie Bell:
wtf ian did
you really make that video of casey mulreed? how do you even know her? can you
please call me when you have the chance?

Amanda squinted.
 
“Yeah, she sounds revolted by you,” she said flatly.

“She wasn’t, she was curious.
 
Like everyone.
 
Look at this.”
 
Liam clicked around on keyboard,
glowing with a pride that didn’t match his worn and frazzled face.
 
“I gained four thousand followers in
the past
hour
.
 
They loved the movie.
 
They said it was beautifully shot.”

Amanda rolled her eyes back.
 
“Yeah, but now no one’s going to hire
you because Casey’s going to have you blacklisted.”

“I don’t need her connections, I have celebrity fans
now.
 
Desiree Silver is following
me.”

Amanda recalled the troubled and unemployed former
child star.
 
“And you called her a
desperate, try-hard D-lister on HDU, so why do you care?”

He frowned, kicking an empty can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.
 
“Why don’t
you
care is more like it.
 
This was our plan together, from the beginning.”

“Not like this, Ian.
 
We weren’t supposed to piss off Hollywood and make a name by
being complete assholes,” Amanda argued.
 
“Everyone loves Casey and you hurt her.
 
And you… they don’t even know who you
are.”

Ian turned his laptop screen to face her.
 
It was opened to multiple windows of not
just gossip sites, but mainstream news.
 
The Huffington Post, People Magazine, CNN – Ian’s name and face
were emblazoned across every one of their front pages.
 
He stared at Amanda with satisfaction.
 
“Well, they do now.”

WHAT WAS
LEFT: A NEW IT BOY AND MEMORIES OF A FLAWLESS FILM

Ian Marsh on
the rise after popular video is pulled from the Web

February 4

Posted by FilmFreak

HDU via Indie Grind

An artist’s celebrity rises when he or she dies young.
 
Ian Marsh is thankfully still alive, but
his brilliant work is very much dead.
 

Interested in watching his gritty and moving film
about Casey Mulreed again? Tough luck – all versions have been stripped
from the Internet thanks to a cease and desist letter from Mulreed’s lawyers.
 
Though the film made her look quite
tragic and sympathetic, she and her legal team had any and all signs of it
eradicated from the Web.
 
Forever
gone is the stunning camera work, that seamless editing, those jump cuts that
left you wanting for more.
 
In four
long and simultaneously too-short minutes, Marsh made audiences want to laugh
and cry at the same time.
 
True,
many have quickly come to detest the guy who exposed America’s sweetheart, but
the smarter fans know something good when they see it – and this is it.
 
This is art.

So who is our new obsession, Ian Marsh? This unknown
was first spotted hanging out with Liam Brody’s girlfriend, Amanda Nathan, and
was briefly rumored to be dating Mulreed before the short film released (I
mean, how else would he have gotten that confession out of her?).
 
There’s little else we know about this
young prodigy, but let’s hope that someone gives us the scoop soon, because we’re
jonesing badly for some more.

TOP
COMMENTS:

R0X1E

anyone watch it before it got pulled? it was
surprisingly good

lizzietack

i feel guilty liking it because it felt like she
didn’t know she was being filmed

x_cutetoboot_x

it was really interesting for sure. idc about the
film tho, i just think he’s HOT

so_effin_cute

agreed.

mrstylerchase

why all the love?!? he’s fucked up! what did casey do
to deserve this from him?

R0X1E

plz girl she’s been boring for years. he did her a
favor.

IN CASE
YOU MISSED IT: AMANDA AND LIAM FIGHT IN PUBLIC

Pop Dinner

February 4

Amidst all the Ian Marsh/Casey Mulreed drama, a
similarly juicy story was overshadowed.
 
Since no one else will tell you, we’re providing the scoop!

Last night, Liam Brody and Amanda Nathan were spotted
dining in Chelsea – but with a sexy mystery guest whom we’ll have to
assume was the cause of the couple’s heated blow-up.
 
After returning from taking a phone call outside, witnesses
say that Amanda looked suspicious and angry with Liam – perhaps for
canoodling with their stunning guest in the curtained booth? One source alleged
that through the crack of the curtain, there appeared to be a lot of movement.
 

“They were definitely on the same side of the booth,
which they weren’t before Amanda left to take a call," the anonymous diner
reported.
 
“Liam got out right
before Amanda got back – who knows what she would’ve seen if he didn’t.”

No one may know for sure what happened, but we’re
pretty sure we can guess.
 
Sorry to
say it, but we told you so!
 

- Chapter 10 -

Since first discovering HDU six years ago, Amanda had
come to understand a lot about the Internet and pop culture.
 
Out of all the elements – the
trends, the popularity swings, the jargon, the memes – she had always
found fandoms to be the most interesting things.
 
So many celebrities maintained relevance solely because of
their devoted and almost rabid fan base.
 
They were the “stans,” or stalker-fans, as HDU and the rest of the
gossip world called them.
 
Hatred
of a celebrity fueled the stans.
 
They loved to take on a challenge, to find ways to defend the most
polarizing figures in Hollywood.
 
They often
made
the
celebrity.