Dirty Debutantes #164

For over 13 years and 164 volumes, Ed Powers has been cranking out his own versions of Andy Warhol film portraits. Andy Warhol famously created portraits of the beautiful, vapid members of his famed SoHo "factory" by placing them in vaguely uncomfortable situations and allowing the camera to watch them squirm. Somehow, mysteriously, with this process Andy managed to scratch off the veneer of each person's personality to reveal the desperation and longing present just beneath the surface --through Andy's camera, his actors' souls were revealed.

The movies of Ed Powers have been so popular for so long for the same reason that Warhol's films were so popular with the New York art scene - the opportunity to witness people completely revealed. Whereas most pornography has terrible story lines, lousy music and actresses pretending to really love getting fucked by some nasty, hairy guy they don't know, in an Ed Powers movie all of this is stripped away. No story lines, no music, no faking - just the corpulent Ed, a camera, and a woman who isn't professional enough to know that she shouldn't scrunch up her face in disgust when Ed wants to kiss her. The appeal of an Ed Powers movie, in other words, is the opportunity to not just watch a beautiful woman have sex, but to be let in on her true feelings as she does it. If she's enjoying herself, it's there. If she's feeling miserable and degraded, it's there too. No bullshit, no fake orgasms.

The first segment on volume 164 of Dirty Debutantes has Carmen Diego, Kitty Marie, and the gorgeous, insane Cherry Rain revisiting Mr. Ed's bedroom. None of them are first timers, so there isn't any uncomfortable small talk to warm them up - they're all giggles and tongues, and seem like Valley high school students playing hookie to have a little fun and make a few bucks. There's a great moment at the beginning where Cherry and Kitty are asked to masturbate for the camera while Carmen blows Ed, and the girls just look at each other and begin laughing hysterically - it's clear that they're having a good time, which is always fun to watch. Cherry and Kitty then take their positions in the corner of the room to giggle and laugh while watching Carmen and Ed have sex on the bed. They, of course, eventually get bored with just watching and before Ed can even flip Carmen over to take her from behind, Cherry and Kitty are fully engrossed in sucking on each other's toes, giggling like maniacs. They're clearly having all the fun, as Carmen's pained expression seems to indicate that her frantic efforts to picture Brad Pitt aren't working. Charming as always, Ed then offers "Last chance - anybody want some dick before I stick it in her ass?" and, Cherry and Kitty having sufficiently warmed each other up, are all over the offer. Lucky Ed.

After going through both girls, Ed fulfills his promise to give Carmen anal and finally finishes off in her mouth.The girls aren't even close to finishing, however, and keep going with a two-pronged vibrator, a strap-on, and Ed behind the scenes directing them and providing commentary.

The highlight of this portion is Cherry using the strap-on on Carmen doggy style. Cherry clearly relishes the opportunity to be on top for a change, and she takes full advantage of the opportunity, smacking Carmen's ass in true "who's your daddy" form. Ed's commentary is always fun, with the highlight of this segment being "Now that's a Cherry Rain."

The second scene on this disc is first-timer Monica. This is a must-see to because it is so thoroughly disturbing. Unlike Cherry, Kitty, and Carmen, Monica has absolutely no luck trying to enjoy her experience with Ed. She's painfully quiet during the interview portion, where Ed manages to finally pull out of her that she has no high school diploma and wants desperately to go back to school. Her discomfort only gets worst; she spends her sex scenes in stone faced silence, staring blankly out the window, making only lame attempts to move at all. It's positively eerie, when, facing the camera in reverse cowgirl, she stares blankly at it with Ed's grunts and occasional moans providing the only soundtrack. The slow zoom into close-up on one tear falling down her face is the only come shot to be found with Monica.

This DVD features an "Action Menu", which is chapter titles with moving video next to them, a picture gallery featuring shots of past Dirty Debutantes, an Ed Powers bio (which includes the odd factoid that Ed was the recipient of the 1994 humanitarian award from the Berkeley Pop Culture society), and "Love From Ed" which is just Ed doing a monologue about how many women he's been with.