REEL LIFE / FILM AND VIDEO FILE : 12-Hour Exercise Series a Hard Act to Follow : ‘Buns of Steel’ promises a tough workout for those who want just that.

When it comes to exercise videos, there are “Jane Fonda Fat Burners,” “Dancin’ Grannies,” “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” and any number of others.

But by any measure, the “Buns of Steel” series is the benchmark of the genre. There are 12, count ‘em 12, gluteus-flexing hours of posterior pain, including the soon-to-be released platinum series, “Buns of Steel 2000.” Each tape retails for about $14.95.

Sarah Hampton of Port Hueneme exercised to the original “Buns of Steel” video for six months.

“It’s really hard,” she said. “The first time you do it, you’ll have trouble getting out of a chair the next day.”

Hampton said the instructor in the original “Buns of Steel” is tremendously annoying.

“He keeps saying dumb things like, ‘Squeeze those cheeseburgers.’ ”

Hampton said she got the best results when she turned off the VCR and simply started running.

The successive “Buns of Steel” videos are presumably more rigorous. So, after working your way through 12 tapes shouldn’t your backside transcend ferrous standards of firmness and become buns of titanium or even carbon fiber?

*

The Ojai Film Society is showing “Map of the Human Heart,” a sort of Inuit “Age of Innocence.”

An Inuit boy from the Canadian Arctic travels to Montreal for hospital treatment. There he falls in love with a mixed-race girl named Albertine. Distressed by their intimacy, their teacher, played by Jeanne Moreau, sends Albertine to Ottawa, hundreds of miles away.

When they meet again in World War II England, they resume their romance even though they’ve developed in different cultural directions, she white and he nativist. The differences eventually separate them.

The sometimes hallucinatory filming and a story that stretches across decades as well as continents makes the picture dreamlike and, according to some, a little difficult to follow.

The show starts at 4:30 p.m. at the Ojai Playhouse, 145 E. Ojai Ave. Admission is $6.

*

Also on the thwarted passion front is “Remains of the Day,” the new Merchant-Ivory film.

Anthony Hopkins plays a British butler with the demeanor of a tart berry. Emma Thompson is a housekeeper, who is like Devon cream.

The conflict is that Hopkins and Thompson are so busy satisfying the tastes of their employer that they don’t end up in the same bowl together.

You shouldn’t get your appetite up for this film unless your gas tank is full, because the picture hasn’t yet come to Ventura County. But you can catch it at the Paseo Nuevo Theater in Santa Barbara.

Pancho Doll compiles Reel Life each week for Ventura County Life. If you have information on local film, television or video events or personalities write to him at 5200 Valentine Road, Suite 140, Ventura 93003, or send faxes to 658-5576.