It boggles the mind that someone ever made a musical version of Frederico Fellini's Italian neo-realist cinema classic 8 1/2. That the musical, re-imagined as Nine, ran on Broadway to great acclaim and five Tony Awards in the early 1980s continues to befuddle me. But what confounds me the most is that anyone remembered this show in the first place. Nine features a series of musical numbers so uninspired, I forgot the tunes even as I was listening to them. What about this lifeless mess attracted a powerhouse panoply of talent headed by Daniel Day-Lewis, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Nicole Kidman and Sophia Loren (plus Fergie and Kate Hudson) must go down as one of those little unsolvable mysteries of life, like where the missing socks go when we put them in the dryer. Personally, I'd rather see a musical about that.
