CHICK FLICKS

You know you’re close to hitting bottom as a TV-aholic, when you scour for things to watch, while you are a member of Netflix, Prime, BritBox, and every other subscription known to man. Once you have binged on all the shows you love and the season is over, there is this angst of “what do I watch now?” A crazy need that not just any program will satisfy, takes over.

I have eclectic taste in programming. As an Anglophile, most things British work for me. The latest remake of some old-time favorites, like Perry Mason and Lost in Space, have proven to be spectacular. The new shows about the future, like Upload, and others are reeling me in. Always up for comedies and dramadies, like Atypical, Bonding, Bosch and a billion others, I have soaked up all of those. I do watch foreign films, but they have never been a “GO-TO” when searching for new things to watch. I did love the Swedish version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series.

Love stories, though, have never been my main thing…until now.

OK! So, I have gone Korean. A big thank you to artificial intelligence for this new addiction. Based on what I watch, all my subscriptions kept recommending the same Korean movies. I blew them off at first. The titles were weird, and it just didn’t look like something I would be interested in pursuing. Then I watched one. O.M.G.!! They are the best chick flicks in the world.

Each season in Korea is 16 episodes long and each episode is 90 minutes. It’s a lot of binging. Watching the first few episodes of “Crash Landing on You”, I laughed at the cheesy camera effects and music that played after poignant scenes. But these shows are well-written, the stories are unique, and the cast is fantastic. Soon after dropping my elitist and snobbish movie critiques, I laughed out loud, cried a lot, remembered what love should look like, and just kind of lost myself in this new fantasy land. I am yearning for a second season.

Then I watched Chocolate. It is another great love story. Then there is Something in the Rain. The list goes on and on. Can you tell the addiction was fast and deep? Yep. I admit it. I am addicted to Korean love stories. My brother calls it my Korean Porn. I can’t seem to get enough. It’s my escape from all that is wrong with the world right now. My mom and daughter came to visit this past week on vacation. I got them to watch a couple of episodes of Crash Landing and they are now hooked. It’s the best love story ever.

Unfortunately, I have never experienced true love. No one has ever been in love with me romantically. I am the biggest cynic in the world when it comes to love. So, to fall for this kind of thing just floors me. It demonstrates behaviors unlike any experience I have ever had with a male carbon unit. Must be my age and recent strokes. I am getting soft. But by the end of the season, I thought romantic love could be a real thing.

Well, no matter what I believed before, I am here to tell you — I am in love — with Korean Rom-Coms. Put that in your kimchi and eat it.