‘Painting With John’: John Lurie Offers A Soulful, Deep, Pained & Absurdist Portrait Of An Artist & A Strange Life [Review]
On an economic storytelling level, HBO’s terrific and delightful new documentary series, “Painting With John,” begins with a brilliantly simple and effective little riff. Starring renaissance man John Lurie—a renowned actor known for his work in classic Jim Jarmusch films, a musician, filmmaker, author, poet, and now, mostly a painter— who stars, writes, directs, and produces the entire endeavor, “Painting With John” immediately deconstructs the myth of Bob Ross, the famously soothing and gentile 1970s/‘80s television watercolorist who brought the joy of DIY painting to the masses and into homes across the nation, and of which Lurie’s show most resembles on the surface.