Year Starts Off With Powerful Dramas on Social Strife : THIS WEEK’S MOVIES

Topping many critics’ best-of-’89 lists, Spike Lee’s provocative “Do the Right Thing” (MCA, $89.95, R) is a controversial drama concerning racial tensions on a summer day in New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant community. The cast includes Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee and Lee himself. “The Women of Brewster Place” (J2, $79.95 for the two-cassette set) is a 180-minute release that combines the two parts of this thoughtfully made TV movie about seven black women who work together to improve their lives. This was Oprah Winfrey’s TV acting debut, and the filming of Gloria Naylor’s novel also stars Cicely Tyson, Robin Givens and Paula Kelly.

Also concerning social strife, though for the young people of Northern Ireland, is “Children in the Crossfire” (Vestron, $79.98), a George Schaefer-directed TV movie from 1984.

Back to Hollywood-as-usual, “Pink Cadillac” (Warner, $89.95, PG-13) throws together Clint Eastwood and Bernadette Peters in an action-comedy about a skip-tracer (someone who hunts down people who skip bail) and his involvement with the woman he pursues. If the plot reminds you of the 1988 Robert De Niro-Charles Grodin film “Midnight Run,” the quality probably won’t.

More Hollywood-as-usual: “Eddie and the Cruisers II: Eddie Lives!” (IVE, $89.95, PG-13), and “Signs of Life” (IVE, $89.95, PG-13).

From Britain: “Paperhouse” (Vestron, $89.98, PG-13), an intelligent 1988 horror film starring Ben Cross and Glenne Headly, which, like the “Nightmare on Elm” series, has scary fun with the confusion between dreams and reality; and “Wonderland” (Vestron, $79.98, R), a Philip Savile-directed drama about two boys who witness a murder.

OTHER NEW VIDEOS

Two excellent 100-minute documentaries shown on PBS, “W.C. Fields Straight Up” (narrated by Dudley Moore) and “The Marx Brothers in a Nutshell” (narrated by Gene Kelly), lovingly survey the careers of some of the funniest performers who ever lived, with generous film clips. They’re $59.98 each from Vestron.