It’s been a while since the average independent short film freely available on the Internet was better crafted than the average Hollywood movie that you have to pay $15 at a theater for. However, I had never been this impressed before seeing this piece: ?????? (Lee’s Adventures).
If I hadn’t glanced at the forum comments first, I might’ve been turned away quickly by the seemingly rough graphics and ghetto voice. 20 minutes later, I was in awe of the creative, hilarious, sad, and quite deep storyline. With a plot as random as Alice in the Wonderland, this animation packed in elements of comedy, action, romance, and sci-fi. The author cleverly incorporated tons of pop culture references and subtle jokes: including the character names.
The story is about a young man with a strange disease trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend by beating a video game that will turn back time. His stubbornness about love is a reminder of how naive many of us used to be… but of course nobody I knew had the courage to go through the kind of adventures that he did.
Instead of YouTube, you can also download a higher res version via eMule from VeryCD.