It seems as if accomplishing such a feat will be quite rare, and thus, worthy of recognition. And so it was born: The Slackers Shrine. At first it was just going to be as simple as including films to The Shrine that reach this height; a place for the highest achieving films to gather from the Slackers Selection Movie Blog. But then it was decided to take it one step further. When a film accomplishes something like this, it's obvious that it's an extraordinary piece of work. And so, to limit future lists from being bogged down by a film that each of us regard so highly, we also decided that with inclusion to this Hall of Fame, films will also be removed from consideration for future Top 5 lists. It seems almost negative in a way, but in all reality it's for the benefit of all of you, as readers. Ultimately, we decided to remove them as to provide that much more variety in future lists. We'll always be sure to make note of The Slackers Shrine in subsequent Top 5 posts - if a film is removed from contention on a list that it may otherwise be considered for, we still want you to know it exists; we want you to know that it's not there because it's already had its day and is considered a King among men.
For example: "The Shawshank Redemption" just swept the Prison Break lists, and will now be forever enshrined in our hall of glory. So if we ever do, say, a Morgan Freeman list, you won't see "The Shawshank Redemption" show up on any of them. You'll get note of its inclusion in The Shrine, but otherwise, a completely new set of films will be presented for your reference.
So that's pretty much it. None of us expect the Shrine to fill up very fast, but that's kind of the point - the best of the best. As of now, there are two ways for inclusion in the shrine, but one being much more unlikely than the other. The first, which will pretty much be the standard for inclusion, is simply when a film takes the top spot on all five lists in any subject (actor, director, genre, etc.). Not four of five - or even four of five multiple weeks in a row - it has to be number one on all five lists in one post.
The other way for inclusion, which will be an even rarer occurrence than above, is for unanimous vote by our entire panel of writers. We don't expect this to be common ground, but, let's say maybe someday down the road there's a film that's received countless amounts of attention but unfortunately without ever quite reaching perfection. In that scenario, one writer could nominate said film for enshrinement. If it's agreed upon by all four other writers, then it will be that the film will also forever be immortalized. If the vote fails though, it will never again be allowed submission for manual acceptance. This will all be behind-the-curtain stuff for you, but we thought it was important to show the details of how this system will work.
But for the most part, expect the first scenario to be the only true method for inclusion. We just wanted to leave a loophole in case something comes up and retiring a film seems the right thing to do.
As of now, there are two films immortalized in The Slackers Shrine. As we mentioned, "The Shawshank Redemption" just accomplished the feat, but it wasn't the first to do so. A month and a half back, "Batman Returns" managed the same rare achievement in our Danny DeVito Top 5 List.
From this point forward, we'll keep the list up-to-date, and make sure to point out any and all new inductees. If you notice, there's now a tab at the top of our site featuring The Slackers Shrine. There, you can find a beautiful place all can visit to show their respects for these perfect films; to see the lists they came from, and when it was that they were accepted into immortality. We hope this is a gesture all can appreciate, and will help to show off some films that truly are deemed the best of the best from the Slackers Selection Movie Blog.
