Idiom-request: What do you call a book/movie with a poor story line and excessive pathos?

I'm not a native English speaker, but I think there was definitely an idiom that describes a book, a movie or a screenplay that has a poor story line, shallow characters, too much heroic pathos etc.

I think it was something like "cranberry sauce"... Or "cranberry jam" maybe. Definitely something with berries (I think).

"Golden Raspberry Awards" mentioned in the comments does ring a bell, thanks. But is there an established idiom to describe it? Something close to "pops", "bubblegum culture", "kitsch"... We do call it "cranberry" where I live in the EU, that's why I'm asking.

Solution 1:

This is a pot boiler, potboiler, or pot-boiler.

From Wiktionary:

Noun pot boiler (plural pot boilers)

(mildly derogatory) A creative work of low quality (book, art, etc), produced merely to earn a living or for profit, as opposed to serious creative expression.

And from Wikipedia:

A potboiler or pot-boiler is a novel, play, opera, film, or other creative work of dubious literary or artistic merit, whose main purpose was to pay for the creator's daily expenses—thus the imagery of "boil the pot", which means "to provide one's livelihood". Authors who create potboiler novels or screenplays are sometimes called hack writers or hacks. Novels deemed to be potboilers may also be called pulp fiction, and potboiler films may be called popcorn movies.

[tidied]

Solution 2:

This can be called fluff

Defined by Oxford Dictionaries as:

Entertainment or writing perceived as trivial or superficial.
‘the film is a piece of typical Hollywood fluff’

Solution 3:

Perhaps narm? From TVTropes:

Narm is a moment that is supposed to be serious, but due to either over-sappiness, poor execution, excessive melodrama, or the sheer absurdity of the situation, the drama is lost to the point of surpassing "cheesy" and becoming unintentionally funny.

Glurge is somewhat similar, except more specific to over-the-top sentimentality/inspiration. From TVTropes:

Glurge is a catch-all term for any "inspirational" tale which conceals a much darker meaning than the uplifting moral lessons it purports to offer. The word "glurge" was initially coined by a reader of Snopes.com and derives from the sound of someone throwing up.

Its origins are from snopes:

In ordinary language, glurge is the sending of inspirational (and supposedly “true”) tales, ones that often conceal much darker meanings than the uplifting moral lessons they purport to offer or undermine their messages by fabricating and distorting historical fact in the guise of offering a “true story.”