So what's with the magazine cover and the big huzzahs over a series of 45 minute adult tapes?

For one thing, Teasers is not another adult line of Lazarus- resurrected footage in new nd improved packaging. That's a relief. The stuff's all brand new (maybe a little dated - Taija Rae looks like a Grand Diva at the New York Met), but that's not the selling point here.

Each tape is a complete story - no loops, thank you. They're marvelously acted, well constructed, another beautifully produced couples-oriented tales of infidelity, body swapping and sexual boredom. Hey, just like real life. In addition, the tapes are produced and packaged for the sell-through market. And, believe me, they're worth owning.

I'd rank any one of these tapes against a full-length feature on the sale charts, and, probably in almost all cases, Teasers walks away with the marbles. For instance, any storyline that can get Samantha Strong to be a real, living, breathing, pulsating, sexual gyro (her scene with Mike Horner in Watch me Sparkle is a slammer) has created a minor miracle of sorts - through director Bone has an industry rep for getting some of the best sexual performances out of his people. Or another scene - in The Inheritance where Kari Foxx takes it over the hoods of a car - that's the camera capturing sex at it's zenith. You can't technically, and sensually be better.

But that's the charm of this series. You'll delight in discovering one sexual mini-classic after another. The Inheritance, about three daughters who must keep chaste to nail the family fortune, features vintage physical Taija Rae in the state she should have been left (till somebody in the industry tried to change her image).

Frustrated Housewives has Peter North and Jeanna Fine at odds as to what's more important business or the person you love. Watch Me Sparkle is couple's swapping with Samantha Strong, ironically, at the best she's ever going to be. Ditto: Champagne Reunion which highlights a classic Samantha Strong bath tub sequence.

Heavenly Bodies has Herschel Savage and Tony Montana as photos sampling their models, and Saturday Lovers shows that Trinity Loren can talk, can act, is absolutely lovely and can do much more than big tit oil rubbing scenarios, or grace the cover of AVN.