 According to the reviewer, the films "American Beauty" and "For the Love of the Game" share all of the following in common EXCEPT:
Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. Ambient noise falls away, the crowd disappears, and there she is, Lester's angel, writhing in slow motion--just for him. The movie is convinced, too--which is odd, since the fantasy of an underage cheerleader making a middle-aged man's wilted roses bloom is a tad ... primitive. It feels lustrously hip and aware, and a lot of critics are making big claims for it. The script, by Alan Ball, a playwright and former sitcom writer, carries an invigorating blast of counterculture righteousness, along with the kind of pithily vicious marital bickering that makes some viewers (especially male) say, "Yeah! More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. Aided by his cinematographer, Conrad Hall, and editors, Tariq Anwar and Chris Greenbury, he creates an entrancing vision of the American nuclear family on the verge of a meltdown. A merican Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie.
 A successful portrayal of New Age Nihilism
 The first names of the protagonists  Protagonists who glorify masculinity  A successful portrayal of New Age Nihilism  The first names of the directors