It's easy to build a classic but current capsule wardrobe. Lee Holmes selects the everyday essentials that will see you through rain and shine

Talking loudly at a pop concert these days can get you reprimanded – and don't even think of spilling your beer. Fiona Sturges applauds the new etiquette

Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone), a gangster, spends much of this film snivelling about his estranged wife and struggling to decide whether to kill the French waiter she's sleeping with.

Never mind Monsters vs Aliens, the three-word pitch of Outlander is "Vikings vs Aliens", as Jim Caviezel's spaceman crashlands in eighth-century Norway with a fire-breathing beastie in the hold.

Alien vs... Viking? You'd better believe it.

Raised from their stasis-like sleep, the crew of the spaceship Nostromo have stopped to investigate a mysterious distress signal. It's not a good move. In the ruins of an ancient craft in a windswept planet they discover a cargo of giant eggs. John Hurt bends over to peer at one. In a flash, a terrifying organism has attached itself to his face. Taken back to the ship, he remains unconscious until the creature appears to die and fall off. But in the mess hall of the Nostromo he convulses - and a gruesome junior alien bursts from his chest, spraying the onlookers with blood. It's gone down in film legend as the event that Ridley Scott concealed from 28-year-old Sigourney Weaver and her co-stars, hoping to catch real expressions of fear and revulsion.

When Jean-Pierre Jeunet got the call to go to Hollywood to direct the latest `Alien' film, he knew it was time to learn some English, get on a plane, and compromise the principles of a lifetime.

Cavendish Square seems, calmer than other London squares - slightly old-fashioned, less hurly-burly, even cleaner than others; almost a film set vision of London as it is supposed to be. So it's the right place to come across John Hurt, that most versatile, most gentlemanly, most British of actors.

Thomas Mann's gay 'Lolita' has been done to death. But one British director was determined to make a film of the novel inspired by the film of the original. And set it in Swiss Cottage. Roger Clarke went on location to find out why

First seen erupting from John Hurt's chest, the monster that formed the centrepiece of the film Alien goes on sale next month. Those with pounds 20,000 to spend can discover the workings of the puppet that horrified Sigourney Weaver and Hurt in Ridley Scott's 1979 film.

Hey, remember that alien autopsy footage? I think that might be fake! It's just a feeling, so don't push me, but I don't think that's a real alien!

Rob Roy (15). Unexpectedly, one of the movies of the year. Michael Caton-Jones's beautifully crafted epic has all the salt and style that Braveheart lacked. Liam Neeson plays the Highland chieftain, as resolute as an oak against the squalls of English oppression. Tim Roth and John Hurt are superb as his Sassenach adversaries. Jessica Lange is the one disappointment as Rob's bonnie lass. Best of all is the earthy script, by Alan (Night Moves) Sharp. It sounds as if it might have been given a polish-up by a writer named James Boswell. Not one for the more squeamish though.

This weekend belongs to the aliens. Manchester plays host to the International Conference on Alien Abduction, while Channel 4 gives lesbianism a rest and screens pictures claimed to be of dead space folk being dissected in Roswell, New Mexico, circa 1947.