I may not look forward to the next Potter film with the same pee-your-pants intensity I held for the final novel, but it doesn’t mean I’m not excited for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Judging from the trailer – which fellow AMG-er Perry described as “Omen-y” – there is a lot to get excited about, including but not limited to Voldemort in his formative years, badass Dumbledore, and if we’re lucky, the reanimated corpses of some very unfortunate wizards. After all, evil just isn’t evil without a zombie army.

Here we go again with yet another month of wonderful finds on cable that have fallen through the cracks of VHS and DVD distribution. This August is a veritable treasure trove, with rare screenings of a Carol Reed classic, a Robert Aldrich camp classic, and a Hong Kong shock cinema outing that takes the meaning of “visceral” to a whole new level. And that’s only the beginning. So grab your remotes and keep your TIVOs handy, an exciting month of channel-surfing lies ahead.

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This week’s DVD releases each seem to have an clear affiliation with one of the famous triumvirate of naughties. But behind a movie’s obvious basis in one vice is usually a subtle, ephemeral tribute to one of the others…

Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay: It’s safe to say Drugs are the overriding theme in a film when it’s classified as a “stoner comedy,” but for Sex, you can’t discount the power of Neil Patrick “I Wanna Sex You Up” Harris. Also, this movie has a lot of vaginas.

Never Back Down: Don’t lie to yourself, this is total soft-core porn. It’s all about virile young would-be competitive reality cast-offs sweating, stripping down half naked, and getting in street fights that somehow never end with someone getting kicked in the junk — let alone shot in the face. However, I have to admit that underground kickboxing clubs coached by built African guys are, in essence, pretty Rock and Roll.

Shine a Light: A documentary about perhaps the most definitive rock and roll band in history is pretty, well, Rock and Roll. But it doesn’t get more Drugs than those bearded lost weekends Marty spent with the Stones back in the ’70s, lost in a haze of 8-balls and aviator sunglasses.*

Also on DVD this week: Doomsday, Surfwise, and the Band’s Visit.

*I have this on literally no one’s authority.

Ten years after their first trip to feature film land, veteran paranormal partners Mulder and Scully return with this rather bland exercise in talky morality that does little to make up for its awkward title – or the anticipation that surrounded it. Playing up to a very small amount of the series’ strong points was the flick’s first mistake. In fact, the movie feels more like a weak episode than anything requiring a big screen canvas. As a reboot of the franchise, I Want to Believe spends far too much time rehashing each character’s stereotypical motivations and less time on how their spectacular exploits have affected them. In this area, the picture might just play better to non-followers of the show, though even that doesn’t excuse creators Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz for dreaming up such dull reasoning for this tepid reunion.

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When you hear that Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, and John C. Reilly had so much fun making Talladega Nights that they decided to throw another movie together just for fun, you have pretty clear knowledge - or at least hope - of what you’re going to get. There will be comedic male nudity (and really, what male nudity isn’t), there will be guys self-seriously comparing themselves to ninja unicorns, and God willing, someone will get buried alive. Step Brothers delivers on all this, as well as on the infamous R rating (Ferrell himself reveals his own full frontal crown jewels within the first half hour, though of course, it’s possible that they’re prosthetics), a notorious first for McKay, an Upright Citizen’s Brigade alum and longtime Ferrell collaborator. There are big stupid belly laughs at big stupid gross-out jokes from opening titles to closing credits, and despite the distinct feeling that none of the comedic triumvirate were waiting around for a script with a truly innovative story, they all make use of the open-ended premise (Two 40 year-old men with curly hair act like 9 year-olds, except with more dick jokes. The end). There’s tons of room for awesomely offensive and over-the-top improvisations, and at no point does it feel like anybody is playing it safe or pushing the boundaries - everybody is just going with their first, most hilarious impulse.

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Recently, three brave AllMovie editors headed out to the local multiplex to go see Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly do what they do best: behave like giant, half-naked man children. Each coming away with a few unique thoughts on the hardcore hijinks, Cammila Albertson, Perry Seibert, and Nathan Southern hereby decided to log their reactions to Step Brothers with the AMG Roundup.

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One week goes by and another sneaks up on us here at All Movie. As the sweltering summer eats up our sweat as well as our precious time, we’ve found that there’s still room to cram in a few flicks here and there that we figure you, our dear readers, would like to hear our take on. Thus, we present another installment of What We’re Watching, a weekly look at what’s on our editor’s tubes at night when the big blazing lemon in the sky goes down and our remotes come out. As always, enjoy — and be sure to let us know what you’re watching as well.

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Any filmgoer who’s been fortunate enough to have seen director Werner Herzog’s best works knows well the poetic power and remarkable mastery of his imagery, pacing, and overall tone. This not only applies to Herzog’s narrative features, but – somewhat uniquely – to his documentary films as well. In his 2005 documentary Grizzly Man, Herzog crafted an absorbing portrait of a true outsider whose unbound passion for nature ultimately brought upon his untimely death. With Encounters at the End of the World, Herzog continues this long trend of profiling people on the fringes of society, this time focusing on the small community of “professional dreamers” who live and work at the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic headquarters. The result is a film that is at once mesmerizing and captivating, due both to the surroundings he explores and to the fascinating people he meets.

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