Arcade Fire   “Scenes from the Suburbs” is a 30 minute film that
embodies the mix of nostalgia and creeping alienation of the
band’s thematic album. The movie follows a crew of seemingly
typical American teens, goofy and emotionally awkward, but with
a menacing backdrop of a town at war with neighboring towns. The
kids’ community is gated with military checkpoints. Soldiers
pull suspects out of their homes onto manicured lawns at
gunpoint. Arcade Fire member Will Butler jokingly described the
premise as “‘Red Dawn’ minus 80 minutes,” referring to the Cold
War action movie in which teens go into survival mode after a
Soviet invasion of their small town.  Mr. Butler, a multi-
instrumentalist and on-stage hype man for the band, co-wrote the
movie with Jonze and his brother Win Butler, the group’s lead
singer and songwriter. He was in Austin, where “Scenes” was
shot, for its premiere in the SXSW film festival. A public
release of the movie is being planned for the coming months.
The band, known for its experiment