19 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.

12. 

    CJ Holden

    January 8th, 2026 at 12:38 am

    Slightly random question: Is 4K UHD worth it? I am thinking of getting a player, mostly because it seems like this is the only way to get a bunch of bonus features with your movies these days, but I only have a 32″ TV and can’t get a bigger one unless I move into a bigger apartment. Also over 30 Eurobucks for a new mainstream movie is a lot and of course the more obscure ones are only sold in limited editions for twice as much. Should I make the jump?

13. 

    Simon Underwood

    January 8th, 2026 at 1:06 am

    CJ: It’s tricky. My dad and I are still using all the formats we’ve ever bought – we recently had our laserdisc player refurbished, and it’s as working like we just bought it in 1996 – and I knew UHD was not going to be as big a leap as from DVD to blu, so I wasn’t in a hurry. Also I was regularly getting annoyed by people on forums yelling that everything needed to be done on UHD now, because reviews had made it plain that the format came with more hedging and less certainty about the output than blu-ray’s.

    BUT. Then like you I was getting annoyed that certain films were only getting extras and remasters on UHD only – or more aggravating, there’ll be a region-free UHD, but the blu-ray will be region A locked, which I can’t play easily – I can rip them to my PC and connect a drive to our blu-ray player, but that’s a pain. So I started to buy some as future-proofing, like Arrow’s The Long Kiss Goodnight and In The Mouth of Madness, and a few Vinegar Syndromes. Then in October we sprang for a new amp and a player. It DID take me several weeks to figure out the best TV setting for it all (backlight to 100% Brightness 30% – normally I would think that insane), and we have a 50” so we’re not suddenly seeing a massive expanded picture but …yeah they are beautiful. I think my favourite so far has been Sally Potter’s Orlando. The colour and detail in that is staggering. And we finally got to use the UHD of Showgirls – which I’d never seen! – and again, just stunning.

    BUT 2. I still think blu-ray’s (and laserdiscs and DVDs!) are great, and money is a huge factor for us. So I’m still not going to buy everything on it now. It’ll depend on reviews of the encode, extras, and also whether I think the extra cost is worth it for the quality. So example, I will definitely get One Battle After Another on UHD. But for a film like Nobody 2, a blu will still do me fine. (On the other hand I just paid [REDACTED] to get the out of print 35th Anniversary UHD of Labyrinth because I was desperate to see Trini Alvarado’s screentest version of Sarah and that’s the only version of the film that extra is on!)

14. 

    CJ Holden

    January 8th, 2026 at 1:25 am

    Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I still buy DVDs and of course Blu-Rays, often just depending on the price and how much I like the movie. A random 80s teen comedy is good enough on DVD and if I want a modern day movie, Blu is good enough for that. It’s really just how our boutique labels seem to release all those festival hits and b-movie classics as UHD special editions these days, otherwise I wouldn’t think of upgrading again. I don’t even have a top notch sound system, apart from a stereo that I inherited from my cousin and that is probably older than me but still works fine.

    So yeah, I guess I still have to outweigh the pros and cons before I buy a new player. The biggest con is really the price. I must really like a movie (or it must be a great special edition) before I get a UHD for the price of three Blu-Rays, but I surely won’t stop buying physical releases now.

15. 

    Bill Reed

    January 8th, 2026 at 5:34 am

    Congrats, Vern!

    CJ: I have like over 160 UHD titles in my collection now. Is it worth it? Well, you’ll probably need a bigger fancier TV to go with any new player. The UHD discs also tend to be touchier than regular blu-ray, with hang-ups on layer changes, inability to deal with scratches or smudges, occasional other issues. Regular blu-ray seems more resilient. Also I honestly think Dolby Vision HDR is overrated. But when it all hits right, it really does look good. What I really love is picking up older movies in the UHD format– stuff like JAWS or a Kubrick flick looks incredible.

    Here in the States, when there are movie sales, they tend to be on the UHD discs, so I pick those up. The collector in me wants the best “version” of the movie. Though I try not to re-buy stuff I already own on blu.

16. 

    Mr. Majestyk

    January 8th, 2026 at 6:19 am

    I have a UHD player just because some editions are released only in that format, but on my extremely basic and modestly sized TV I cannot tell the difference. I’ve even compared movies that come with both a UHD and a blu-ray and they look exactly the same to my eyes. I’m sure it’s different if you have a giant fancy-pants TV but I don’t have the room for that, so I’ll always stick with the blu if it’s an option. Hell, if it’s a movie where the visuals are not the main draw, I’m perfectly fine with a DVD, as long as it has all the special features. I get Criterion DVDs all the time because they’re cheaper and still look great to me. My eyes ain’t getting any sharper so I don’t see why my movies need to.

17. 

    CJ Holden

    January 8th, 2026 at 9:31 am

    My (by modern standards small) TV does UHD, but the few times I watched something on streaming and suddenly it switched to that mode, the only difference was for my eyes that the pic was darker. (Obviously streaming isn’t a good benchmark test for uncompressed picture quality, but still.) I take very good care of my physical media. I have CDs that I own since the early 90s and that don’t have one fingerprint on them and I also never had to blow on a Nintendo cartridge, but I feel like UHD discs being more delicate might mean that I will have less fun on the used market, which is where I always got most of my stuff from.

    Thanks for all the replies.

18. 

    geoffreyjar

    January 8th, 2026 at 10:07 am

    tl;dr: BD/HD/1080p is MORE than good enough. I think most DVDes show their age but I’ve watched a couple recenlty that honestly hold up! It all goes down to the transfer/master. If said master is good enough, then even the DVD will look up to par imo.

    ===
    I got a fancy pants-ish TV and my big take is it depends on the transfer/master. If the DVD is using an old bad master, it’ll look like a DVD. But I have a couple of DVDs that actually look really good still! If the Blu-ray uses the same master as the 4K… then there will not be much difference. The big argument is ‘4K isn’t a big leap it’s the HDR that is the real draw with UHD!!11″ My ign’nt opinion is HDR is mostly marketing. I have seen only a handful of titles where I’d go, ‘yeah you know, the HDR/Dolby Vision did actually improve it. Not by much but ya know…’ But I did some tests a few months ago and turned it off and the 4K transfers still looked good to great. Then I turned the TV to HD/1080p… and the movies pretty much looked the same… (as Mr. M said)

19. 

    Palermo

    January 8th, 2026 at 11:27 am

    I think it mostly is marketing Geoffrey, especially when I see people on forums go all crazy about the importance of DolbyVision (if you have a high end TV it makes little to no difference over regular HDR).

    My hot take is I actually love the way regular blurays look upscaled to 4k. I can’t really describe it but they are sort of stunning in a different way than a 4k disc, like less unbleamished and pristine, but more how you’d expect a movie to look projected in theatres. DVDs are worth upgrading, but normal blus are still cool in their own way and may be worth holding on to, though I can be swayed by cool new packaging and extras.