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Spoiling World Trade CenterSlate's "post-view" of Oliver Stone's 9/11 epic.

By Andy Bowers
Posted Monday, Aug. 14, 2006, at 2:32 PM ET

Oliver Stone's much-awaited and debated film World Trade Center opened a surprisingly strong No. 3 at the box office, bringing in $19 million over the weekend and nearly $27 million since it opened last Wednesday. (Of course, "surprisingly strong" in this case reflects Hollywood's expectation that a movie about the most depressing day in recent American history from a controversial director could have tanked.)

The film may seem a challenging subject for a Spoiler Special (a "post-view" discussion of a movie in which we feel free to discuss endings and plot points left out of most reviews) because it has nothing to spoil. We all know what happened that day, and most of us even know the basic outline of the uplifting rescue story the movie recounts. But WTC is still a film you want to talk about after you've seen it, and that's the other purpose of spoiler specials—to provide the kind of post-screening chat you might have with friends after leaving the theater.

In today's edition, Slate's Dana Stevens and Bryan Curtis discuss what happened to Stone's politics, the intriguing character of the Marine who helped in the rescue, and much more.

Click here to play or download the WTC spoiler.

And in case you missed them, here are links to our seven previous Spoiler Specials:

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
Miami Vice
Scoop
Lady in the Water
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Devil Wears Prada

Let us know what you think of this new audio feature: .

* If clicking on the link doesn't start the audio playing on your system, or if you prefer to download it, try right-clicking (Windows) or holding down the Control key while you click (Mac), and then "save" or "download" the audio file to your hard drive.

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