How movies can help you live in the here and now

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Entertainment RX is an entertainment-guided advice column offering things to read, listen to, or watch that somehow address the issues readers write in about.

Entertainment RX, a new column from former Globe TV critic Matthew Gilbert, is an entertainment-guided advice column offering things to read, listen to, or watch that somehow address — or, in some cases, distract from — the issues readers write in about. Send your questions to matthewgilbert33@gmail.com.

My siblings and I, all senior citizens, are currently dealing with my 100-year-old mother in hospice. She has had a long run but is in her final weeks. There are no big feelings or unresolved issues, just dealing with mortality. What do you suggest? The raining frogs in “Magnolia” are somewhat over the top for our situation. We are more visual, so perhaps some simple flicks.

Mortality! My favorite theme! And I’m only being a tad facetious. Movies staked on the inevitability of death often serve as essential reminders for us to live for the moment, to not waste time on trivial worries, to keep perspective. They remind us that nothing gold can stay, elevating us for a few hours to glimpse what truly matters in our limited lifetimes. They may be about death, but they are even more about living, and finding meaning, and, usually, there are no splattering frogs.

You walk away from the likes of Hal Ashby’s 1971 film, “Harold and Maude,” feeling like you’ve been taken to church — the church of “be here right now.” You must watch or re-watch that joyous movie, as well as David Lynch’s clear-eyed, contemplative “The Straight Story” from 1999. It’s about an old guy who drives a lawnmower across the Midwest to make peace with his dying brother — but really it’s about the value of forgiveness and human connection in the face of the end. Not the Lynch of “Blue Velvet,” to put it mildly. By the way, no one knew it, but star Richard Farnsworth had terminal cancer throughout the filming, adding a layer of depth to it all. Want yet another layer?

I like your desire to take on impermanence at this juncture, when the issue is staring you in the face both as an elder and as a grieving…

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