schmaltz

Jimmy Cagney’s old schmaltz vehicle "Yankee Doodle Dandy" looks restrained by comparison.

In what I hope is meant to suggest the falseness of these stories, Brown pounds the pastiche in the songs so hard it borders on minstrelsy: hip-hop for the fixer; fiddle schmaltz for the pilgrims.

He called the second one “his schmaltz camera,” Meyerowitz recalled, in a recent phone interview.

Because they fear schmaltz, they are able to employ emotional effects with great care.”

They have the schmaltz of a prime-time soap or a cheesy movie.