There’s a scene in the action/horror film Blade: Trinity in which a resurrected Dracula, played with a considerable lack of energy by Prison Break’s Dominic Purcell, wanders into a store that sells vampire-themed novelty items. For a second — just before Dracula kills everyone around and the movie switches back to another techno-saturated fight scene — it’s amusing. Where did vampire lore begin and how did it result in countless terrible movies, action figures and…

>>On Thursday, La Maison Française (4101 Reservoir Rd. NW) is hosting a double screening of two of the funniest movies ever made in France. First, at 6:30 p.m., it is Patrice Leconte’s Les Bronzés (1978), whose story follows a group of nutcases trying to relax at a vacation resort in Ivory Coast. Second, at 8:45 p.m., they will show Jean-Marie Poiré’s Le Père Noël est une ordure, which mostly takes place in a suicide hotline…

FRIDAY: >> The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception offers its annual Christmas Concert for Charity tonight. The Basilica’s professional choir (featuring our very own DCist Charles!) will perform, followed by the choirs and orchestra of Catholic University. Admission is free, with a free-will donation to benefit the Spanish Catholic Center, a haven for immigrants to the Washington, D.C., area since 1967. The center provides services at locations in Mount Pleasant and…