‘Never again’

Looks like actor-singer James Reid could have done movies after he and Nadine Lustre broke up as a love team both on- and off-screen. 

But the offers then seemed to be leading for a loveteam with someone or another — and Reid couldn’t stomach any longer having an acting career tied to a loveteam.

“For the sake of my girlfriend (actress Issa Pressman) and for my own mental health, I don’t ever want to be in a loveteam as an actor. I don’t want to be bashed anymore left and right for something I did or did not do as part of the loveteam,” Reid sharply declared and re-intoned in recent interviews. The actor is forever grilled by interviewers when he would pair up with Lustre again. In so many gentle words, he always answers never again.

And yet the Fil-Australian showbiz idol has signed up to be an endorser of Penshoppe summer outfits along with the Nation’s Girl Group BINI. 

He can’t be on a loveteam with eight girls, can he?

Reid and the BINI girls have begun to do some pictorials together — but not with a loveteam motif. The pictorials are meant to capture the market for casual and breezy outfits for both genders this summer.

If Lustre’s ex-boyfriend is being juxtaposed with the country’s leading girl group, it means the guy is still very much a star to reckon with. His macho appeal ranged with eight icons of girl power in this country.

Eat your hearts out, you bashers of James Reid who off-and-on declare him to be a loser, a wash out, just because he lost Liza Soberano as a talent-client of his practically do-everything company with the contradictory name Careless. The now practically dead company is into developing and managing talents, producing records and shows — and yet it never had a reputation as fully staffed (and stuffed with logistics as, say, Cornerstone Entertainment, which is also into anything and everything. 

Or it could be that Reid put it up too soon and in seeming contempt of Viva Communication Company, which used to manage him and Lustre.

Reid seems ready to work again with ABS-CBN where he began as a teen contestant in the reality competition show Pinoy Big Brother. It was with that then-network (the largest in the country for many years) that he was first teamed up with Lustre in the series On The Wings of Love.

“I think they want to put me in Batang Quiapo. I would love to work with Coco Martin again I’ve worked with him a few times. There’s one I have never forgotten up to now. I can still remember a dialog he blurted to me in the show as his brother: ‘Bakit English nang English?!’ The scene went viral!” Reid said in an interview in November last year.

Martin must be racking his brains out as to what role to give to Reid in Batang Quiapo. The series’ lead actor is also its scriptwriter though every actor in the series knows by now that Martin does not write down the script and then gives everyone a copy. He tells the actors the scenario, encourages the actors to think out the exchange of lines among themselves, asks them to rehearse with the cameras running, and requests them for a take two. Martin once admitted that he almost always uses the first take in the final editing because almost every actor in the scene sounds more natural.

We hope Reid can now pull off long dialog in Tagalog, so it would be easier for Martin to create a character for him looming in the hoi polloi district of Quiapo. It seems to have been easier for Martin to create a character for Andrea Brillantes who was recently added to the series’ cast. Oh, well, Brillantes has never had a problem portraying any character. She could be any sinner or saint — as she seems to be with any boyfriend she has in real life.

While waiting for a stint in Batang Quiapo and for movie breaks sans a loveteam, Reid accepts singing engagements here and abroad. He’s slated to do a concert with ABS-CBN’s hot (singing) property Maki in Canada in July. Reid may have a lot of gigs in his schedule that are un-announced  or not-ticketed (corporate shows). 

He’s very much around and seems to be comfortably earning. His new job as Penshoppe endorser may have a lot of gigs — with BINI or other entertainers who look good in Penshoppe attire.

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We wonder how SB19 followers who are not part of their Mahalima fandom are relating to the “song” titled “Dam” as well as its music video.

It’s the first single released from their forthcoming EP Simula at Wakas, which is also the title of their forthcoming world concert tour. We’ve enclosed “song” above in quotation marks because the production sounds to us to be a rap. We find it hard to classify “raps” as songs. They may be legitimate performances but they are not songs — because they are not musical — at all. 

“Galit na galit” is how some media people describe the SB19 members’ performance in “Dam.” The boys have revealed that “dam” is taken from “pakiramdam.” SB19 leader Pablo Nase has insisted that they are not “galit na galit” but just “passionate.”

“May ipinaglalaban kami (We have something to fight for) asserts Nase in a recent media huddle. In the published interviews from that huddle, practically all the members sounded muddled about their assertions regarding the intention and message of “Dam.”

The music video of “Dam” is literally dark, occult-like, confusing. We wonder if anyone who has seen the video liked or enjoyed it.

All the boys of SB19 sing remarkably well. So why the heck are they rapping?!