A timey-wimey guide to the modern era of Doctor Who
For a while, getting into modern Doctor Who was easy. The long-running BBC show is broken up into two distinct eras:…
Primer
Primer is The A.V. Club’s ongoing series of beginner’s guides to pop culture’s most notable subjects: filmmakers, music styles, literary genres, and whatever else interests us—and hopefully you.
Step into the magical, mind-bending world of Hong Kong horror movies
Japanese horror movies have had a profound impact on their Western counterparts, permanently changing the grammar of…
No, it’s not Mexican Halloween: A beginner’s guide to Day Of The Dead
This post is sponsored by el Jimador Tequila as part of its Day Of The Dead Special Coverage section on The A.V. Club.
Where to start with the primal howl of Iggy Pop
In February—one month after the death of his close friend and collaborator David Bowie—Iggy Pop covered Bowie’s “The…
A beginner’s guide to the twisty melodrama of Pedro Almodóvar
The films of Pedro Almodóvar are twisty, lurid, and lustful, melodramatic but deeply empathetic, taboo-breaking but…
Where to start with Jamaican dancehall
As a pop-culture-consuming whole, Americans have a strange relationship with Jamaican dancehall. Although it’s one of…
Where to start with the indie charm of Beat Happening and K Records
Independent record labels are often guided by a singular vision, but few instantly evoke a particular artist’s voice.…
Where to start with Mel Brooks’ high-quality low comedy
Mel Brooks’ reputation rests on a fragile precipice. He built a career pioneering, popularizing, and perfecting two…
Here’s where to start with the scary specter of TV horror series
For decades, horror was the thing you were least likely to see on your TV. It came and went sporadically, occasionally…
A beginner’s guide to Steve Martin’s eclectic, groundbreaking career
Steve Martin has been a part of pop culture for so long, and a force in so many mediums, that the best way into his…
A beginner’s guide to the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe
Prerequisites: A History Lesson
A beginner’s guide to dance-music godfather Giorgio Moroder
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s, there were few artists as in-demand as Giorgio Moroder, an Italian record producer who…
Where to start with the films of Billy Wilder
The films of Billy Wilder are more famous than Wilder himself. As with Howard Hawks—another director beloved by…
Where to start with the many projects of Damon Albarn
Any conversation about the mercurial singer-songwriter Damon Albarn begins with Blur. His longest-running outfit—whose…
How to navigate the weepy world of Lifetime movies
If Lifetime movies came in Odorama—not Smell-O-Vision, Odorama—the scratch-and-sniff cards would have to include a few…
Where to start with psychobilly
When punk and rockabilly had a baby, the little bugger wasn’t pretty. Called psychobilly, the greasy mutant lovechild…
Where to start with the primal sound of garage rock
This month, The Sonics will release This Is The Sonics—the legendary garage-rock band’s first studio album of entirely…
Where to begin with the thesaurus punk of Bad Religion
Anyone needing evidence that punk rock is just as much an American musical institution at this point as jazz or…
Where to start with ’80s U.K. synth-pop
As with many strains of music, the ’80s U.K. synth-pop scene can be traced back to David Bowie. In 1976, Thin White…