Cruz Angeles’ “Fernando Nation” was one of the more straightforward, familiar of the “30 for 30” films, in that the meteoric career of Fernando Valenzuela was well-documented and Angeles didn’t try to focus on an obscure area (ala the Ron Shelton film on Michael Jordan, minor leaguer). But if it wasn’t a surprising film – and hampered from a story arc standpoint by how quickly Fernando went from phenomenon to journeyman – it was still an effective one, particularly in the material about Chavez Ravine (which I was not familiar with) and how Fernando’s overnight success made the Dodgers a favorite of the Latino community in spite of the uncomfortable history with how the stadium was built.
What did everybody else think?