Cut-the-Rug Releases Lead Threadbare Pack : THIS WEEK’S MOVIES

If you’re crazy about 1990 dance crazes, this week’s two leading video releases may be just your style. Otherwise, there’s nothing much to kick up your heels about except for one semi-golden oldie. You know it’s a slow week when the biggest items are a New Kids on the Block tape and a movie called “Lambada.”

One of two recent low-budget films to wrap their thin plots around the lambada dance craze (the other, “The Forbidden Dance,” comes out Wednesday), “Lambada” (Cannon, $89.95, PG) was the more popular--though it grossed only about $4 million. The hero is a teacher by day and a dancer by night. The cast features J. Eddie Peck, Melora Hardin and Shabba-Doo.

If that doesn’t make you want to run right out of the house and head for the video store, the rest of this weekend’s choices probably won’t either. “American Eagle” (Vidmark, $89.95, R) stars Asher Brauner and Robert F. Lyons in a violent tale about a revengeful soldier. “Max and Helen” (Turner, $79.98, no MPAA rating), the film version of a book by Simon Wiesenthal about a couple who are reunited 20 years after World War II, was a cable TV production starring Treat Williams, Alice Krige and Martin Landau.

This week’s only oldie, from 1978, looks good in contrast.

“The Cheap Detective” (RCA/Columbia, $19.95) is a lot of fun if you don’t expect too much. It might be hard not to expect too much after being told that the writer is Neil Simon and the cast includes Peter Falk, Eileen Brennan, James Coco, Madeline Kahn, Louise Fletcher and Stockard Channing, but this broad parody of “The Maltese Falcon” and similar films delivers as many bad jokes as good ones. Still, check it out--especially if you enjoyed Simon’s earlier (slightly better) detective-film spoof, “Murder By Death,” which also featured Falk and a star-heavy lineup.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: “Valmont” (July 26), “Born on the Fourth of July” (Aug. 9), “Madhouse” (Aug. 30).

OTHER NEW VIDEOS

“New Kids on the Block: Step By Step” (CMV, $19.98) is the video version of the simultaneously released new album by a group of teen heartthrobs who dance better than they sing. That’s a plus for this 40-minute tape, but it still won’t be of much interest to many people over 16.