Painting With John is HBO at its most worthwhile -- arty and unpredictable

Los Angeles Times

"Every once in a while HBO will slip something strange into the lineup of shows on which it stakes its fortune — your Game of Thrones, your Undoing," says Robert Lloyd. "Something arty for art’s sake, something odd for oddity’s sake, like Terence Nance’s Random Acts of Flyness or How To with John Wilson. They may not bring in large audiences, or dominate the chatter on social media, or prompt multiple stories in the press, but for my money, these unpredictable exceptions represent the channel at its most worthwhile. Such is John Lurie’s Painting With John, an idiosyncratic bagatelle whose second episode (of six) premieres Friday. First known as a musician and an actor, pursuits he was forced to abandon by the Lyme disease that still troubles him, Lurie turned to painting, and this new series, whose title calls back to his 1991 IFC/Bravo series Fishing With John, finds him making pictures and telling stories on the unnamed, tropical 'tiny island' he calls home."