11 Responses to ““Don’t you know who I am!? I wrote the essay for the UNDER SIEGE 4K from Arrow!””

1. 

   Simon Underwood

   January 6th, 2026 at 10:57 pm

   I picked it up in town yesterday (we’ve only just got a UHD player in the last two months, otherwise it would have been the blu-ray version – I’m so delighted this film has extras at last!) and it was brilliant to see your name on the back!

   (One aspect of why it was brilliant was I knew I was going to get a really good essay – of late Arrow have had a couple of howlers, including one person that just basically restated the plot of the film, but somehow managed to miss out something really obvious that is shown fully on-screen, and then threw in their own theory for what caused something instead, and also a guy who appeared not to care for the film he was talking about at all)

   But here I knew I would get writing by someone who adored the film AND can write about it fantastically, and so it proved! Really enjoyed it, and I hope they do come back to you if they do Dark Territory (I actually hope they do Out For Justice and call you – we’ve never had a blu-ray of that in the UK ever, and it’s sorely needed!)

2. 

   CJ Holden

   January 7th, 2026 at 12:01 am

   Congrats, man. I’m glad that the decades long striving for excellence finally paid off!

   Simon, yeah, I learned through the years that the written parts are often the worst things about certain special edition releases. I recently found the German Mediabook Special Edition of Weird Al’s UHF for cheap and the booklet was written by someone who tried to be funny by pretending to be a high brow snob critic who scoffs at silly comedies, but the result was an unfunny text that kept telling us over and over what a dumb and awful movie it was and that it would be a waste of time to watch it. And way too often these things just feel like the writers just summarized the IMDb trivia section.

   So it’s always nice when I hear that writers who I know will put some effort into it, were hired to write something for a new release.

3. 

   Steven Edmondson

   January 7th, 2026 at 6:53 am

   Ahh that’s lovely! Not sure if they’re releasing this in the UK but I will keep an eye out.

   Over here Arrow were the OG boutique label for genre films – previously in the dvd era you’d only get films out on labels that were quite indifferent to presentation. Arrow debuting absolutely changed the game.

   The field is far more crowded now but Arrow are still just ahead of the pack imo. I think their recent release of Ms 45 is the single best 4k blu I own as an overall package. I legit emailed them about it which I have never found a need to do before, just to say they’d done a great job.

   This label Radiance has a new sub banner called Transmission that debuted with a Night of the Juggler 4k that floored me. Amazing time to be a collector. I remember in my teens longing for criterion to release here and now i’m swimming in them…

4. 

   jojo

   January 7th, 2026 at 6:53 am

   Wait, so you’re NOT going to be essayist for the Knock-Off 4k coming out next week? Someone screwed up.

   As mentioned above, some of the people who seem to be real busy doing these are… not real good (and I don’t want to call anyone out because I know they’re pitching and hustling like everyone else, and nobody is getting rich doing so). So I’m pleased that Arrow did the right thing (like mookie)

5. 

   Andy C

   January 7th, 2026 at 9:18 am

   That’s awesome! Congratulations Vern.

6. 

   Ronnie Gardocki

   January 7th, 2026 at 9:58 am

   You writing for the release is a key reason I decided to upgrade from my blu-ray copy!

7. 

   Mr. Majestyk

   January 7th, 2026 at 10:22 am

   It’s on the way!

   Dammit, Vern, why didn’t you tell us about the NAVY SEALS essay? I saw it at the Vinegar Syndrome store three or four times. I would have gotten it in a heartbeat if I knew you had a piece in there, but now the deluxe box set is sold out and VS doesn’t put booklets in their standard editions.

   My personal pet peeve with unprepared special edition-ers is podcasters who do commentary tracks. With very few exceptions, they do little research and provide even less information. They just blather to each other about their vague impressions of the movie, and any info they share has a good chance of being dead wrong. Compare this to the work actual historians like Tom Weaver, Lee Gambin, Rudy Behlmer, etc. put into their commentaries and you see the difference between a professional and a dilettante. Podcasters won’t even know the year the movie they’re commenting on came out, but a historian will cite dated memos between studio executives and read transcriptions from interviews he recorded himself. The former is an enthusiast; the latter’s an expert.

8. 

   VERN

   January 7th, 2026 at 11:02 am

   Yeah, I could never do a professional commentary track. It’s a talent I don’t have. I was proud of the NO RETREAT NO SURRENDER one on my Patreon but I was recording each bit and stopping and going back and starting again to get it all right, even with extensive preparation. I hope it turned out worthwhile to listen to and maybe I’ll do more, but I would feel like such a joke sitting in a studio trying to do a real one!

   The funny thing with the NAVY SEALS essay is I’m really not a big fan of that movie, but I’m such a fan of Vinegar Syndrome that I didn’t want to say no in case they never came back with another title. It was a huge challenge because I wanted to be honest about military indoctrination via action movies while also being respectful to military people who are fans of the movie, and at least at the time I felt like I threaded that needle successfully. My one regret is that they didn’t include my citations – I hope the people who conducted the interviews I quoted from aren’t mad at me. But I’m proud to have that one on my shelf.

9. 

   Timmy

   January 7th, 2026 at 11:56 am

   I have become a physical media collector/addict, and I was going to pass up this title until you posted this. Congratulations sir!

10. 

    Miguel Hombre

    January 7th, 2026 at 3:26 pm

    Waiting for my copy to arrive, really looking forward to the essay from vern.

    I’ve mentioned before regarding commentary tracks: the single greatest I’ve listened to was Carpenter’s and Russell’s on THE THING. It’s: funny as hell and surprisingly informative on the realities and pressures of filmmaking, especially when Carpenter reveals that he was never more terrified at the prospect of how to shoot a film (not because of all the obvious challenges with the tough location filming and the complexity of the effects but that the film is at it’s heart scene after scene of a lot of people standing in rooms talking and how was he going to make that interesting and exciting?) And film for film no one does a more intellectually interesting commentary than Michael Mann. And it’s never about the guns and action (that famous headshot in MIAMI VICE evinces not a word of commentary from him.) He goes into enormous depth talking about the psychology and motivations of his characters, and the heightened emotional states he strives for in them, really fascinating stuff.

11. 

    Palermo

    January 7th, 2026 at 5:53 pm

    This is awesome, Vern. I’ve become more into physical media this past year than I have been in a decade because of companies like Arrow and Vinegar Syndrome releasing all these fancy editions in pristine quality. A lack of shelf space (a main reason I had to stop buying a lot of films the first time) is still an issue, but I’ll make sure to pick up UNDER SIEGE.