Movieline

Spike Jonze's Arcade Fire Film Might Just Be a Sandlot Homage With Guns

Sometime last year, Spike Jonze shot a 30-minute film with Arcade Fire called Scenes From the Suburbs in honor of the Canadian indie band's third album, The Suburbs. Today, the first trailer from said project (which was written by Jonze, Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler and Butler's bandmate/brother Will) surfaced on the Internet, complete with so much suburban teenage ennui and narrator nostalgia that it ends up feeling like a modern-day version of the viewer-beloved 90's movie The Sandlot. Let's investigate.

In the trailer, Butler provides narration about an idyllic (well, except for that gunfire and the business men being shot in the forehead, but "those aren't the pieces you remember") summer long ago when suburban punks cruised the cul-de-sacs on bikes, lusted after blue-eyed beauties from afar, and spent the hot summer months uniting in some pursuit that doesn't matter. In retrospect, it was all about friends...and the soundtrack.

Fun fact: You'll recall many of the images here from Jonze's video for the title track of The Suburbs which came out last summer.

VERDICT: For all Arcade Fire completists who are not enraged by images of beanie-wearing punks running rampant in The Suburbs. Also, for anyone who is still waiting for that Southland Tales sequel.