Scott Wilkinson

As the song says, it's the most wonderful time of the year—or the most dreadful, depending on whether or not you plan to join the buying frenzy on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. Many stores open at an ungodly hour and offer seemingly outrageous deals on certain products to get people in the door, hoping that they'll buy more than they bargained for and put the store's accounts in the black for the year, which is why it's called Black Friday—either that, or it might be due to all the black eyes resulting from fights over the last remaining $60 Blu-ray player.

I've been looking at some Black Friday previews, and I've found some apparently great deals on flat panels, Blu-ray players, and other home-theater gear. Unfortunately, many stores do not reveal the model number of the sale items, making it difficult to judge just how good these deals really are, and as far as I can tell, none of them are flagship products. Still, there are a few that I think are good enough to share with you…

Panasonic's 103-inch plasma is nothing new—we first saw it at the 2006 CES—and it's not even the largest plasma in production, an honor that goes to Panasonic's 152-inch behemoth. But last week, the company announced that it is taking pre-orders in Japan for an updated version of the 103-incher that now offers 3D capabilities.

On Tuesday evening, Tom Norton and I went to see Megamind in Imax 3D, and I have to say it's one of the best animated 3D movies I've seen to date. The delightful, touching, often hilarious story is an original and unexpected riff on good vs. evil—and how the boundary between them is often not so clear—and the voice acting by Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill, David Cross, and Brad Pitt is superb.