Schmaltz

There's a fine line between tribute and parody, and Neil Diamond has seen both. To Saturday Night Live's Will Ferrell - who sings "Forever in Blue Jeans" in Gap commercials with frightening accuracy where Neil's hammy, gruff voice and shellacked comb-over are concerned - he's a caricature. But the more than 17,000 fans at Diamond's sold-out First Union Center show Wednesday night know different. Subtlety isn't Diamond's bag, not that a soul expects it from him. He's the anti-Leonard Cohen, a master of boldfaced - not bleak or wry - emotion.

I try not to eat schmaltz because it's bad for me. After all, it's rendered chicken fat, with onion and chicken skin sautéed in its bubbly breakdown to add flavor to the cholesterol. My Eastern European grandparents ate it all the time and lived to ripe ages, but I don't walk up and down tenement stairs during hard days or hike a field to milk the cows. Which doesn't mean I don't want schmaltz. It's nirvana on a piece of matzoh, and I longed for a little spread of schmaltz just once, all during the Passover holiday that ended this week.

Schmaltz. Not a compliment, that Showbizzy ideal of hamminess and glamminess meant to dazzle rather than illuminate. Schmaltz is used to detract. But for Bette Midler, who brought her Millennium tour to the First Union Center on Saturday, "schmaltz" is a compliment, a definition of who she has been as an entertainer (not to be confused with her singing, which is often sublime) since her '70s heyday. When the world was in the throes of glitter rock and SoCal harmonizing, Midler belted and bawdied her way with her own brand of glam: a rude, bodice-popping blend of Sophie Tucker (whom she blatantly tributes in live performance)

I took my schmaltz meter with me to Last Chance Harvey . The needle swung into the danger zone well before Dustin Hoffman's title character - a sad-sack New York jingles writer - touched down in London, where he's to see his daughter married, and where her step- father is to give her away. By the time Emma Thompson - as Kate Walker, a disappointed-by-life spinster - runs into Hoffman's Harvey Shine at the airport bar, the schmaltz levels are off the chart. Then my meter just shivered, shaked and sighed - before exploding into wire and ash. Sappy, sentimental and redeemed only by the quiet radiance and fidgety intelligence of its leads, Last Chance Harvey is a fantasy about mopey middle-agers getting a second chance at love.

Romanian-Jewish delicacies - plus the calories You say chopped liver and mashed potatoes aren't the same without schmaltz? Do you miss the crazy family meals of your youth? Has it been too long since you've had sliced brains with stuffed cabbage? If any of that rings a bell, Famous Sammy's Roumanian Steak House on New York's Lower East Side is the place for you. Stepping into this eatery is like stepping back in time to when Jewish mothers cooked without worrying about fat content and family celebrations were no-holds-barred get-togethers complete with food, dancing and lots of high-volume, simultaneous talking.

Though he conjures Bobby Darin in his forthcoming film Beyond the Sea, it seemed odd that actor/director Kevin Spacey would "do" Darin in a live setting. This could have been a morbid enterprise, if, for instance, Spacey had donned the stark black pompadour of Beyond to schmaltz up the Darin oeuvre properly. But Spacey - an affable presence - didn't need a wig to sell out or schmaltz up the Xanadu Theater at Trump Taj Mahal Saturday night in Atlantic City. "I'm not trying to be Bobby," he said, handsome in his vested tux and bow tie, after hammily - but ably - making his way through a rapidly swinging "Hello, Young Lovers.

Billy Crystal, who makes his directorial bow with Mr. Saturday Night, has been studying at the Penny Marshall School of Filmmaking, a place where Lessons 1 through 3 are: pile on the schmaltz, pile on the schmaltz, pile on the schmaltz. Like the artery-clogging display of Jewish cuisine that we see being set before us during the film's hilarious opening credits (the camera pans this cornucopia of cholesterol to the accompaniment of Crystal's rim-shot one- liners), Mr. Saturday Night leaves you feeling bloated and heavy.

For a recipe that doesn't have a lot of ingredients, there are many variations when it comes to making matzo balls. Here are several to choose from, including one right from the Manischewitz Matzo Meal box. All are served in chicken soup, preferably homemade, so there's a recipe for that, too. Figure on two matzo balls per person served with soup as a first course. Let's begin with a traditional recipe from 1941's "Jewish Home Beautiful," by Betty D. Greenberg and Althea O. Silverman, published by the Women's League of the United Synagogue of America.

A challenging foreign film and a documentary about a somber subject top this week's list of movies new to home video. THE STATION (1990) (Fox Lorber) $89.95. 92 minutes. Sergio Rubini, Margherita Buy. Way out in the country, a clock-watching stationmaster is bowled over by the unscheduled arrival of a dazzling blonde, and they wait all night for the next train. Actor-director Rubini's droll romantic comedy manages to make boredom funny instead of tedious, and that's no small feat.

A good cast fights schmaltz to a draw in "Everybody's Fine," a holiday tear-jerker featuring Robert DeNiro as a dad trying to reconnect with his grown kids. De Niro plays Frank Goode, a retiree and widower who's feeling his own mortality when he abruptly decides to visit his far-flung family in the weeks leading to Christmas - there's an artist in New York, an ad exec (Kate Beckinsale) in Chicago, a classical musician (Sam Rockwell) in Denver, a dancer (Drew Barrymore) in Las Vegas.

In Montgomery Theater's production of The Prisoner of Second Avenue , Tony Braithwaite is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore. On the heels of another heated role - Marc, in Yasmina Reza's Art , at Act II Playhouse - Braithwaite turns up the mania in this dark-edged Neil Simon nugget from the early 1970s, later produced as a film starring Jack Lemmon and Anne Bancroft. Funny thing about the early 1970s: They look a whole lot like the early 2010s. Sure, Manhattan might be cleaner and safer these days, but America's economic troubles and job prospects appear to have come full circle.

I try not to eat schmaltz because it's bad for me. After all, it's rendered chicken fat, with onion and chicken skin sautéed in its bubbly breakdown to add flavor to the cholesterol. My Eastern European grandparents ate it all the time and lived to ripe ages, but I don't walk up and down tenement stairs during hard days or hike a field to milk the cows. Which doesn't mean I don't want schmaltz. It's nirvana on a piece of matzoh, and I longed for a little spread of schmaltz just once, all during the Passover holiday that ended this week.

For a recipe that doesn't have a lot of ingredients, there are many variations when it comes to making matzo balls. Here are several to choose from, including one right from the Manischewitz Matzo Meal box. All are served in chicken soup, preferably homemade, so there's a recipe for that, too. Figure on two matzo balls per person served with soup as a first course. Let's begin with a traditional recipe from 1941's "Jewish Home Beautiful," by Betty D. Greenberg and Althea O. Silverman, published by the Women's League of the United Synagogue of America.

A good cast fights schmaltz to a draw in "Everybody's Fine," a holiday tear-jerker featuring Robert DeNiro as a dad trying to reconnect with his grown kids. De Niro plays Frank Goode, a retiree and widower who's feeling his own mortality when he abruptly decides to visit his far-flung family in the weeks leading to Christmas - there's an artist in New York, an ad exec (Kate Beckinsale) in Chicago, a classical musician (Sam Rockwell) in Denver, a dancer (Drew Barrymore) in Las Vegas.

I took my schmaltz meter with me to Last Chance Harvey . The needle swung into the danger zone well before Dustin Hoffman's title character - a sad-sack New York jingles writer - touched down in London, where he's to see his daughter married, and where her step- father is to give her away. By the time Emma Thompson - as Kate Walker, a disappointed-by-life spinster - runs into Hoffman's Harvey Shine at the airport bar, the schmaltz levels are off the chart. Then my meter just shivered, shaked and sighed - before exploding into wire and ash. Sappy, sentimental and redeemed only by the quiet radiance and fidgety intelligence of its leads, Last Chance Harvey is a fantasy about mopey middle-agers getting a second chance at love.

Democrats are complaining about a Republican ad that ran in Tennessee making fun of Senate candidate Harold Ford Jr. It features mock voters giving dumb reasons to vote for him, such as "Terrorists need their privacy," "Harold Ford looks nice - isn't that enough?", and "So he took money from porn movie producers - I mean, who hasn't?" It ends with a blond bimbo, who says she met the congressman at a Playboy party, winking and cooing, "Harold, call me. " Ford's supporters and other critics say they are appalled at the ad because it appeals to latent racist sentiment by suggesting something untoward between Ford, who is black, and a scantily clad white woman.

Uncle Nino, a lovable old coot from the Old Country, arrives in the United States for the first time armed with the essentials: a giant salami and homemade wine. He also has an English-Italian phrase book, although this does him no good when it comes time to find an airport rest room. You can imagine the hilarity when a woman sees the bearded foreigner emerge from a stall! A creaky, cliched, feel-good family drama about learning to stop and smell the roses - and planting a vegetable garden while you're at it - Uncle Nino is shameless, sappy fare.

Though he conjures Bobby Darin in his forthcoming film Beyond the Sea, it seemed odd that actor/director Kevin Spacey would "do" Darin in a live setting. This could have been a morbid enterprise, if, for instance, Spacey had donned the stark black pompadour of Beyond to schmaltz up the Darin oeuvre properly. But Spacey - an affable presence - didn't need a wig to sell out or schmaltz up the Xanadu Theater at Trump Taj Mahal Saturday night in Atlantic City. "I'm not trying to be Bobby," he said, handsome in his vested tux and bow tie, after hammily - but ably - making his way through a rapidly swinging "Hello, Young Lovers.

Romanian-Jewish delicacies - plus the calories You say chopped liver and mashed potatoes aren't the same without schmaltz? Do you miss the crazy family meals of your youth? Has it been too long since you've had sliced brains with stuffed cabbage? If any of that rings a bell, Famous Sammy's Roumanian Steak House on New York's Lower East Side is the place for you. Stepping into this eatery is like stepping back in time to when Jewish mothers cooked without worrying about fat content and family celebrations were no-holds-barred get-togethers complete with food, dancing and lots of high-volume, simultaneous talking.

There's a fine line between tribute and parody, and Neil Diamond has seen both. To Saturday Night Live's Will Ferrell - who sings "Forever in Blue Jeans" in Gap commercials with frightening accuracy where Neil's hammy, gruff voice and shellacked comb-over are concerned - he's a caricature. But the more than 17,000 fans at Diamond's sold-out First Union Center show Wednesday night know different. Subtlety isn't Diamond's bag, not that a soul expects it from him. He's the anti-Leonard Cohen, a master of boldfaced - not bleak or wry - emotion.