TO SIR WITH LOVE McKellen and Fraser make a striking pair

Gods and Monsters: Anne Fishbein

Gods and Monsters

WHO'S IN IT Ian McKellen, Brendan Fraser, Lynn Redgrave

DIRECTED BY Bill Condon

WHAT IT'S ABOUT A fictional account about the last days of openly gay director James Whale (''Frankenstein,'' ''The Bride of Frankenstein'').

WHAT WE SAID THEN ''...Condon has made a deeply touching, elegant, and inventive biographical fantasy. 'Gods and Monsters' is an extraordinarily graceful film about desire, aging, and the creative harnessing of personal pain into art (low and high), which is, of course, what a good chunk of moviemaking is always about.'' A -- Lisa Schwarzbaum