“The Last Critic” is a captivating documentary that meticulously portrays Robert Christgau, an iconic figure in music journalism, widely recognized as one of the principal architects of what was once known as “rock criticism.” The film delves into the life and enduring legacy of Christgau, who, alongside contemporaries like Greil Marcus, Ellen Willis, and Lester Bangs, established rock criticism as a vital and influential art form, predating the era of poptimism and massive fan bases like Taylor Swift’s.

Born in 1942, Christgau initially distinguished himself as a gifted writer and reporter, showing early promise as a star journalist. His career gained momentum when he attracted the attention of Esquire magazine in 1969, a pivotal media hub at the time. It was there that he conceived “Christgau’s Consumer Guide,” a groundbreaking monthly series of capsule reviews that not only evaluated but also daringly graded the latest rock albums. This format, combined with his distinctive, electrically charged prose and acerbic persona, quickly set him apart in a landscape dominated by more academic rock writers. He famously, albeit jokingly, introduced himself as “the dean of American rock critics,” a title that unequivocally stuck.

The “Consumer Guide” found its legendary home in The Village Voice, becoming one of the alt-weekly’s most fabled features throughout the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Christgau’s writing in this column was characterized by a possessed fan’s insight, transforming each compact review into what felt like a psychedelic sonnet. His audacious decision to affix each review with a letter grade, ranging from A+ to E-, was counterintuitive for the post-counterculture era but became his undeniable signature. His judgments were often playful, yet incisive, as evidenced by his remarks on Prince’s “Dirty Mind” or Bryan Adams’ “Reckless.” His prominence was such that he even inspired disgruntled lyrical shoutouts from artists like Lou Reed and Sonic Youth, and he is seen by some as an unintentional progenitor of publications like Entertainment Weekly, which later adopted a similar grading system.

The documentary captures Christgau at 83, an elder statesman of rock criticism, still a vibrant and wry specimen traversing the East Village. Despite a touch of arthritis and a more stooped posture, he remains mentally agile, possessing a “machine-gun mind” and an ageless vigor fueled by an insatiable hunger for new music. Remarkably, he continues to publish the “Consumer Guide” monthly, now on Substack. The film primarily focuses on his meticulous process of writing these guides, portraying it as the very backbone of his existence and a reflection of his profound obsessiveness.

The film opens with a poignant quote typed by Christgau on an old word processor: “To the eternal ‘Opinions are like assholes — everyone’s got one,’ I just say, but not everybody’s got ten thousand of them.” This encapsulates his prolific output, with over 14,000 reviews to his name. His living environment, a seven-room 2nd Ave. apartment shared with his wife, writer Caroline Dibbell, for 50 years, is a testament to his “encyclopedic pack rat” nature. The apartment is lined with hundreds of feet of books and custom industrial shelves housing 36,000 vinyl albums, CDs, and even cassette tapes, filling every available wall space in his cramped office—a true "cave of knowledge." Here, he spends his days listening to music, tapping out his thoughts on an old computer, finding his bliss in the continuous act of criticism. For Christgau, criticism is a calling, a mission to discover and evaluate new music, capturing each album’s essence in a heightened poetic paragraph, a drive that keeps his spirit perpetually young.

While mellowed slightly with age, Christgau remains a scholar, a wit, and occasionally, a pedant. In his prime at the Village Voice, he was not only a critic but also an editor fabled for his “literary-dictator” ways, pushing writers to their best and even stalking them for late copy. The foundation of the Christgau legend, however, was the “weirdly rational mania” underpinning the “Consumer Guide.” He genuinely believed in a hidden grand order within music, striving to transform the act of consuming records into a structured system, a "celestial hierarchy of judgment" over which he presided. The column’s title itself was a provocative joke, deliberately asserting that the supposed rock "revolution" was, in essence, a form of consumerism—a serious joke, as he aimed to grade the counterculture like its ultimate professor of cool.

“The Last Critic,” directed with lively reverence by Matty Wishnow, includes numerous pithy testimonials from notable writers like Kit Rachlis, Ann Powers, Amanda Petrusich, Chuck Eddy, and Rob Sheffield. Nelson George and Greg Tate highlight Christgau's commitment to showcasing diverse voices in his 1970s music review section, embodying the ethos of The Village Voice. The film also vividly portrays Christgau’s long-standing friendship with fellow legendary critic Greil Marcus. Their intellectual bond, characterized by letters and frequent phone calls, also revealed significant disagreements, such as Christgau’s observation that Marcus did not “feel hip-hop” or James Brown, contrasting with Christgau’s own strong advocacy for funk.

However, the article’s author also raises a point of contention regarding Christgau’s critical perspective, arguing that his "Achilles’ heel" as a critic was his perceived inability to fully appreciate pop music. This anti-pop animus, common among formative rock critics, is described as a "neurotic puritanism" or "snobbish inability to hear the deep beauty of pop," leading to judgments like Sleater-Kinney's “Dig Me Out” receiving an A while Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” gets a B. Despite these personal critiques, the article concludes by acknowledging that early rock critics, Christgau foremost among them, were extraordinary writers who carved out their own unique brand of beauty. The "Consumer Guide" was a compulsive read because Christgau channeled the music, making the act of listening to him articulate each album’s worth a dramatic experience. Ultimately, “The Last Critic” serves as a powerful testament to the multifaceted nature of a great critic: a priest, a fan, an assassin, an aesthete, a merciless truth-teller, and a vessel of love.