Fun, Anyone?nNine to Five; Written by Colin Higginsnand Patricia Resnick; Directednby Colin Higgins; 20th Century-Fox.nNeil Simon’s Seems Like Old Times;nWritten by Neil Simon; Directed bynJay Sandrich; Rastar, Columbia Pictures.nby Stephen MacaulaynIn Nine to Five, Jane Fonda, LilynTomlin and Dolly Parton portray thenThree Musketeerettes of the modernncorporate world. According to the film,nany faux pas makes one (a man, that is)nliable to have the stuffing pounded outnof him by the lovely ladies. Or is thatnrighteous women.” One can’t be tooncareful. All three women are shown beingndumped on by their boss. Tomlin,nhead of a section in the office, has allnof the bright ideas for improving workernefficiency and such. But the male sexistnpig (there were several more adjectivesnchanted by the women that I didn’tncatch, but those three words sum it up),nwhen he isn’t chasing his secretary,nDolly, around his office, promotes mennabove Tomlin. All the girls go into antizzy, get slightly inebriated, then holdna pot party during which they fantasizendoing in the boss.nEventually, the girls kidnap their bossnand hold him captive for several weeks.nWhile he’s out of the way, they make allnthe office reforms that the tyrantnwouldn’t stand for, changes rangingnfrom a day-care center to the eliminationnof the time clock. Naturally, thenmale ultimately gets the credit, but thenwomen had fun, just the same. The filmnshows more than anything else that anlack of morals is not limited by sex ornposition, that it’s an equal-opportunitynMr. Macaulay is a youthful movie fannin Detroit.ndeficiency.nThe legal profession and family lifentake it on the chin in Neil Simon’snSeems Like Old Times. Goldie Hawnnis a lawyer who defends blacks,nChicanos, Amerinds and any other “oppressed”npeople, then employs her clientsnafter the judge demands that theynfind work. Her husband, Charles Grodin,nis the D.A. and is slated to becomenthe state attorney general. Goldie’s exhusband,nChevy Chase, is a writer whonis framed in a bank robbery. He oncenspent two years in a Mexican jail on andrug-smuggling conviction, though henMerciless Realists of the 20’snThey flourished in Germany in anclimate which colored their social andnideological concerns with a ruthlessnessnrarely matched in the history ofnart. They are known only vaguely innthis country outside the circles of critics,nexperts and big-city connoisseurs.nSuch obscurity is a pity, for theirs arenperfect visual comments about whatnhappened between the unbound culturalnnihilism of the Weimar era andnHitler’s “national renaissance.” Theynillustrate how social conscience, whennexpressed through jarring ugliness innorder to shake individual consciences,ncan breed hopelessness and cynicism,nturning moral permissiveness intonnnclaims—with a grin—that it was all anmistake.nGoldie loves Grodin—or so she says.nChevy, silly, stumbling Chevy, returnsnand asks her for help and for a little bitnmore than help. He is a fugitive who canndestroy Grodin’s career, but, what thenheck, he’s more fun. Grodin is an oldnstiff by comparison. After all, a wouldbenattorney general isn’t as wildly funnynand cute as a writer who lives alone onna hill.nThe movie is made in the name ofnand dedicated to the sacred stature ofnfun in our society. I’ve had more laughsnwhile my dentist excavated mynmolars. •nweakness and rot that enable politicalnthugs to thrive.nIt’s therefore commendable that thenMinneapolis Institute of Arts organizednthe exhibit “German Realism ofnthe Twenties,” which was then hostednby the Chicago Museum of ContemporarynArt from November 1980 throughnJanuary 1981.nThe period and the style, termed bynhistorians Neue Sachlichkeit (NewnRealism), is, of course, suffused with ancurious mixture of Marxist dialectics,nromanticism and hedonistic sensitivitiesn—a concoction which has characterizednevery bohemian rebellion of the 20thncentury. The symbols of social defiance,nsentimental enthusiasm and sexualnlicense intermingle supposedly tondemonstrate ethics, compassion, recognitionnof cruel injustice. The greatnnames of the movement—Otto Dix,nChristian Schad, Ernest Thorns—merci-nwmmmmmmmm^nMarch/April 1981n