Inception is essentially a heist movie. Heist movies don't generally have much of a villain. It's the difficulty of the job that is the source of the conflict. I'd say a closer analog than The Sting is Ocean's 11 but closer still is The Brinks Job and maybe even The Taking of Pelham 123.

However, to underscore Trey's point, Nolan often disguises character dramas as genre films, and that's what Inception REALLY is. Cobb is his own worst enemy, as is Leonard in Memento, Borden in The Prestige, and Batman in the first and third Batmen. And as good as Nolan films tend to be, that's often his undoing. Bogart could play Rick Blaine as a troubled man (or his characters in Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, The Maltese Falcon, and plenty of others), but they still keep it together and square off against the real threat.

Nolan keeps pulling a bait-and-switch that I think is wearing rather thin, especially with TDKR: "Hey, I've got a great story to tell you about a troubled guy who has to stop a crazy lunatic. It's got amazing visuals and effects... and the real crazy lunatic is HIMSELF! GOTCHA!" There are probably more scenes of Nolan heroes' friends trying to get him to come to his senses and stop his crazy behavior than there are of Nolan villains doing crazy things.

I tried watching Speed Racer with my nephew, who was 9 at the time, and we gave up around 20 minutes in, when Speed was being pressured by the sponsor guy. Too loud, too confusing.

What a terrific event with a terrific group of people. I feel lucky to have participated.

Congratulations to everyone who helped and in particular to Teague, Holden, and Mike for building the ship for us to sail on. It wasn't just a crazy amount of work. It was crazy complicated, too. But aside from the Internet's and YouTube's idiosyncrasies, it went off without a hitch!

Whoo hoo! Shout out to me!

*does hand jive*
*moonwalks out of room*

Yes. If I were going to change Ron, I probably wouldn't make him much more loyal. That's a role others assigned to him because they can't think of any other value he adds.

I've said I'd prefer him to be the Ron Weasley we met in Sorcerer's Stone: knowledgeable about the wizarding world and clever and courageous enough to beat the chess challenge. We lose that with Prisoner of Azkaban.

I love the moment in Goblet of Fire when Harry tries to hang out with Neville because Ron has left him and he's just bored with Neville's nerdery. It says so much about Harry and Ron's relationship.

Han Solo was specifically presented as a mercenary without loyalty. His return hailed the completion of his change into a loyal friend.

Ron's return serves mostly to point out that Hermione is, in addition to being smarter and more capable, also more loyal than he is.

I denigrate Ron largely because I believe Rowling denigrated him. She subconsciously wanted Ron to be weak, insecure, capricious, poor, and dumb so that he was not a threat to Hermione's independence in any way. She constructed the "perfect" marriage partner for her avatar to make up for her own abusive marriage.

Perhaps.

Testing is great. Failing that test twice demonstrates that his loyalty is not unwavering. How many times does a husband need to cheat on his wife before it's considered infidelity?

Here is what Ron actually does. I'd like some examples of Ron bringing the other two down to earth, because I think that's wishful thinking, an attempt to invent a role for him, especially since he literally abandons his friends in 4 and 7 and somewhat in 6, when he spends time with Lavender.

SS: He befriends Harry and introduces him to the Wizarding World. He knocks out the troll. He beats the chess challenge.

CoS: He helps rescue Harry from the Dursleys and gets him to school in the flying car. He helps discover Draco is not the heir of Slytherin with the polyjuice potion. He helps Harry escape the giant spiders.

PoA: He does pretty much nothing but help stun Snape in the Shrieking Shack.

GoF: He mostly abandons Harry but does warn him about the dragon challenge.

OotP: He joins Dumbledore's Army but little else until he fights by Harry's side in the Ministry of Magic.

HBP: He mostly gives Harry bad advice but helps fight off the Death Eaters in the school at the end.

DH: He mostly abandons Harry but does help destroy the locket and diadem [edit: and cup]. He fights by Harry's side in the second half.

Your four examples come from book 1 and book 7, and at least one of them he actively tried to get out of doing. Merry & Pippin bring the ents, light the signal fire to bring the Riders of Rohan, and help Eowyn kill the Witch-King, three of the most important events in the story.

And Hermione doesn't do a whole lot? What do you mean? She has the answer to everything and casts nearly all the spells outside of fights. Except for the fact that she has all the courage of a little old lady, one could rationally argue that Harry and Ron are HER sidekicks.

I watched Oblivion with Tom Cruise and, despite its being rather cold and familiar and not having a bit of snappy dialog, I liked it quite a bit. 3.5 stars.

I watched RED, with Bruce Willis and friends liked it a lot. It felt warm and fresh and had plenty of snappy dialog. 4 stars.