This week on The Flickcast, Matt is back home from his trip to sunny LA and he and Chris are back in action with a whole bunch of new topics. Some of what gets discussed in this episode includes Mark Strong as Sinestro in Green Lantern, Conan in 3D, Wal-Mart buying Vudu, Betty White on SNL, Call of Duty and its many incarnations, Ian McShane as Blackbeard, the sale of Action Comics #1 and a whole lot more.

They both also made some good picks again this week incuding Matt’s pick of the short film The Legacy and Chris’ pick of the classic 80’s TV series Tales of the Gold Monkey, featuring Stephen Collins and Roddy McDowall.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

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The number one seller of DVDs in the country, Wal-Mart, has apparently seen the writing on the wall and is again getting into online distribution of movies and other video content by purchasing Vudu, the four-year-old-company that has deals with every major movie studio and 40 independents. According to the article, Wal-Mart is paying an undisclosed sum for Vudu, which abandoned its hardware business a few years ago and instead is focusing on software embedded in millions of televisions.

As you may know, Wal-Mart has tried this kind of thing before. In February 2007, it announced it was becoming the first major retailer to offer digital movie downloads. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well with the company shuttering the business in the first year. Wal-Mart also launched a by-mail DVD service to compete with Netflix, but gave up on that as well when it partnered with Netflix later.

Now, with Vudu, Wal-Mart competes not only with iTunes and Netflix but also with Blockbuster, TiVo, Amazon and others that allow consumers to rent or buy movies digitally. Vudu currently has 20,000 titles in its library, 3,000 of which are in HD or HDX, a proprietary format Vudu says is comparable in quality to Blu-ray.

Having only seen Vudu in stores and at trade events, I can’t really vouch for the quality of the video. It just seemed okay. Plus, this seems a little late to the game what with iTunes and Netflix already having a large foothold into the living room. Still, Wal-Mart is a giant retailer with years of experience growing a successful business so it will be interesting to see how they utilize this latest acquisition.

While most folks like to sleep in after consuming mass quantities of tryptophan and sweet potatoes on Thanksgiving day, some crazies (myself included) are up at the crack of dawn the next day, waiting in line at the local electronics and DVD store to fight the masses and get the best deals.

Luckily, with the invention of the Internet comes some sly dogs who have posted most of the great Black Friday deals online, mere days before the epic sales. Thanks to sites like BlackFriday.info and GottaDeal.com, we can now sit back in the luxury of our homes to check out some of the great deals we plan on taking advantage of this Friday.

Of the many, many deals going on that day, we’ve decided to break down a few of our favorite picks for the holiday sale, just for you, our loyal readers. One of the best picks, by far, is Best Buy’s Samsung Blu-Ray Player with Netflix and Pandora support for $149.99. If you’re looking to finally upgrade to Blu-ray, that would be the machine to start with.

Once you’ve got the Blu-ray player out of the way, why not grab some good Blu-ray discs? If you don’t want to leave the house, Amazon has got some great deals including Chuck: The Complete First Season for $20.99, the Batman Anthology for $51.99, and even Ocean’s Eleven and Twelve for $9.99.

Switching over to video games, Best Buy seems to have some of the better deals (even the “best”), but only if you’re able to get to the store before noon on Friday. You can pick up Brutal Legend, Left 4 Dead 2, and Dragon Age for the Next Gen systems for only $34.99.

These are just some of the great deals going on Friday, and we hope you’re able to get out to the stores (or not) and take advantage of some of these great sales. Happy Thanksgiving!