10 Incredibly Smug Movie References You Might Have Missed

7. Die Hard With A Vengeance - McClane's Retirement

It's almost hard to remember, but not so long ago, Die Hard sequels were something to be celebrated rather than laughed at. For many - myself included - the third in the series was the greatest of all the sequels, overshadowing the flabby second outing, and vastly out-stripping both the fourth and ill-advised fifth installments.

Part of that comes down to the writing, which produced a tighter, and funnier script, as well as the uplift in scale that makes the threat to McClane all the more pertinent because of the wider ramifications.

Returned from retirement (as is always the way in such genre offerings) McClane is questioned as to how he's been spending his retirement, to which he responds he's been "smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo". On the surface, the line works, because it implies that McClane is at a loss since retirement, and feels redundant enough to not do anything with his free time. But that ignores the rather clever reference to The Statler Brothers' "Flowers On The Wall," whose lyrics inspired the response.

So rather than just answering for McClane, the script has Bruce Willis respond to the question as well, referencing Pulp Fiction, which came out a year before Vengeance and which famously featured the bald star singing lines from the same song. If someone wasn't heartily patting themselves on the back there, I would be remarkably shocked.