We bring you our guide to living well in the world’s capitals, from exhibitions to cinema, food, drink, fashion, music and beyond. Just call it culture and take it, it’s yours.

LONDON, FRIDAY 8th NOVEMBER – SUNDAY 10th NOVEMBER 2013

Space man, I always wanted you to go into space man. Not anymore…
In Gravity, Sandra Bullock plays stuttering newbie astronaut Dr Ryan Stone alongside George Clooney as seasoned space mechanic Matt Kowalsky, whose work on the Hubble Space Telescope is abruptly interrupted by a disastrous cloud of inter stellar debris. Recipe for disaster, right?

The stunning visual effects in this film will blow you away from the offset. It isn’t just the best-looking film we’ve seen this year but an incredible achievement for modern cinema – the chilling pinsharp audio, groundbreaking digital effects and claustrophobic camera angles should keep you firmly in your cinema seat – feelings of space motion sickness post-film will prove you’ve really enjoyed it.

Gravity in cinemas now and  IMAX 3D at these selected venues.

Adam and Eve, Cane and Abel, dogs watching porn in the Hamptons
Photographer Philip Lorca DiCorcia is showing his new exhibition East of Eden at London’s David Zwirner Gallery .
Partly inspired by John Steinbeck’s East of Eden book and including themes from the Book of Genesis, his combinations of documentary-style street photography and precise staging create intrigue and mystery, purposefully engaging the viewer into questioning the assumed realities of each image.

In The Hamptons (2008), two white dogs attentively watch a pornographic movie in a well-appointed, white-walled room. What biblical significance does this have? You’ll have to figure that one out for yourself.

Philip Lorca DiCorcia: East of Eden
David Zwirner Gallery, 24 Grafton Street, London W1S 4EZ
Until 16th November 2013

Then, head over to the new Serpentine Sackler Gallery to see an extraordinary site-specific installation by the young Argentinian artist Adrián Villar Rojas, in which the space has been re-imagined as a fossilised world of ruins and ancient monuments.

From a sculpture of a mummified Kurt Cobain to a crumbling elephant, 33 year-old Villar Rojas combines science fiction and pop culture with the natural world to create a contemporary Pompeii. Impressive!

Adrián Villar Rojas: Today We Reboot The Planet
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA
10:00–18:00 weekends, free entry
Until 10th November 2013

Your new box-set, not on-demand
Over the next two weekends, 9th-10th and 16th-17th November, the ICA will be hosting a hugely rare screening of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s epic Berlin Alexanderplatz.

This film, the longest narrative movie ever made, is a 15 and 1/2 hour exploration into the criminal lifestyle of Franz Biberkopf, the hero of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel, focusing on the underworld hidden beneath the Alexanderplatz area of Berlin which he inhabits.

The ICA screening is broken down into two seven part screenings on Saturday and Sunday this weekend and next, with plenty of interval breaks so don’t worry about your eyes becoming square.

ICA Screening: Berlin Alexanderplatz
£25 for full weekend pass, see time intervals online here
9th-10th and 16th-17th November 2013

Merchants of good fortune and fish finger sandwiches
There is nothing we want more during these cold winter months than a big hearty plate of real food. None of that sushi or sandwich rubbish. Just when it was needed, Angela Harnett and her business partners have opened the Merchants Tavern in Shoreditch to satisfy our wintery English palettes.

Mains of roast meats and root vegetables teamed with deserts such as London honey tart, malt whisky cream and crème fraîche make a perfect Sunday lunch. Also this weekend’s bar specials feature fish finger sandwiches and venison pie too.

Merchants Tavern, 36 Charlotte Road, London EC2A 3PG