Joy Bryant vs. Zoe Saldana vs. Kerry Washington
Battle of the Up-and-Coming Starlets of Colour

First, let's just establish that two facts are indisputably, inescapably true:

1. Hollywood only has room for one (1) actress of colour on the A-list at a time.

2. Halle Berry stopped occupying that slot last Friday.

I mean...right? It's over for her. Even she knows it. Her Best Actress Oscar win in 2002 secured her place in history, and now her career has joined it there. In history. Along with other things we used to think were neat in the past, like butter churns and Model Ts and dodos, but that are no longer with us, and never will be again. So the question now becomes, with Halle Berry out of the picture, who will be the African-American starlet to succeed her?

There are at least three lovely young actors working hard to take over: Joy "Baadassssss!" Bryant, Zoë "The Terminal" Saldana, and Kerry "She Hate Me" Washington. All three have films in cinemas this summer, and while none of them were those films' above-the-title stars, none of them is likely to be the subject of as vitriolic and pun-filled reviews as Catwoman has been. (To be completely honest, She Hate Me shows all signs of being a gigantic and quite offensive bomb, but those failures will be laid at Spike Lee's door, not Washington's.) None of them has had her breakout role yet, but it's not for lack of trying. In fact, they all seem to be trying the same things:

• Opposite a Pop Star: Bryant in Carmen: A Hip-Hopera, Saldana in Crossroads
• Opposite Several Oscar Winners: Saldana in The Terminal, Washington in The Human Stain
• Opposite Some White Girl Who Needs A Black Friend To Teach Her To Have Soul As A Dancer: Bryant in Honey, Saldana in Center Stage, Washington in Save the Last Dance
• In a Big, Loud Summer Tentpole Movie: Bryant in Spider-Man 2 (just a cameo, but still), Saldana in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
• In a Movie About a Marching Band: Saldana in Drumline, Washington in Our Song
• With Each Other: Bryant and Saldana in something called Haven

But all that list shows us is how well they've copied each other. What happens when you try to distinguish them? Well, first, you notice that -- with the exception of Antwone Fisher -- Bryant's movies are all either low-prestige, total crap, or both. So, while she's very pretty and did a fine job as a woman living with MS on ER last season, she's out. A for effort, though. Actually, all things considered, it's a credit to her agent and publicist that we even thought to compare her to Washington and Saldana, given her slight CV. (It's a credit to her abs, as well.)

Clearly, the real fight is between Saldana and Washington, and they're not making it easy on each other. It used to be that Saldana made the big commercial movies and Washington made the fancy Oscar bait, but ever since Pirates, Saldana's been blurring the line; that got nominated for a few awards, and The Terminal got a lot of award buzz right up until the moment people actually saw it. Now she's about to star in the as-yet untitled Bernie Mac/Ashton Kutcher race-reversal remake of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, in which she presumably plays Mac's daughter and Kutcher's love interest. The movie will probably be dumb, but so was The Birdcage, and it turned out to be a breakout vehicle for Calista Flockhart in a very similar role. It would also probably be very annoying to star opposite Ashton Kutcher at this point in his career, but could he really be any worse than Britney Spears? (We suppose that judgment call depends on which you find more irritating: the constant possibility of getting filmed in the middle of having an obnoxious prank pulled on you, or...having a conversation with Britney Spears.)

For her part, Washington has been trying to work her way into the mainstream over the past few years. Both Bad Company and Against the Ropes, unfortunately, didn't get any attention other than the widespread observation that they sucked, but she has better prospects: playing the subject's stalwart wife in the Ray Charles biopic Ray; and co-starring opposite an Oscar winner (Angelina Jolie) and an international superstar (Brad Pitt) in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Okay, written out like that, Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt seems less like a leap into the mainstream and more like a leap into the icy waters of Flopsapeake Bay. We still wish her the best.

Advantage: Washington, because she's "slammin'."