Award Snub: What does Nolan have to do to get nominated by The Academy Awards for Best Director, give birth to triplets live on stage?
Especially in light of how the Directors' Guild did nominate Nolan for Inception. Nolan can end up being the first director to win the Guild's award and not be nominated for the Oscar for it.
The Academy basically expanded the Best Picture nominee field for the first time in over 60 years basically stemming from the outcry of The Dark Knight's snub.
Doing It for the Art: Inception was his pet project for a long time. But in order to have the resources to make it come to life, he knew he had to get some experience and success with large-scale films. Enter The Dark Knight Saga. That's right, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, the films that legitimized superhero films as films that could be taken on a dramatic scale while still being eye-popping entertainment, were WARM-UPS for him.
Fan Dumb / Hate Dumb: For some reason, both his most devout followers and virulent haters manage to be approximately the same level of stupid and obnoxious.
Hype Backlash: His biggest crime is having an overwhelming fanbase that rivals Pixar's, and that's just to say the least.