Head-high champagne powder turns, avalanche close encounters, 4-year-old phenoms, craggy cliff jumps, vintage boot sporting 90-year-olds ... ahhhh, it must be Miller time.

Warren Miller is back with “Impact,” his 55th annual celluloid love letter to winter sports. The 80-year-old documentarian doesn’t stray too far from his tried-and-true snow plus danger plus travel plus music mix. And why would he? Hordes of foaming-at-
the-mouth ski and snowboard fiends await his films like ... like ... like anyone who has gone 250 odd days without a fix. They need it, they want it and they’re willing to pay nearly 20 bucks to join other jonesers for an adrenaline-bonding night at the movies.

Although Miller often suggests it, most of us don’t have the funds to chase winter around the globe but we can live vicariously through the extreme athletes he taps to tackle the terrains of such far-off winter wonderlands as Switzerland, Bulgaria and France.

As far as U.S. footage goes, this year’s flick gives a significant amount of screen time to Colorado (Snowmass, Copper Mountain, Steamboat Springs and Vail) and Alaska (Points North, Girdwood and Wrangell-Saint Elias) with side trips north (British Columbia and Alberta) and south (waterskiing in Acapulco).

Highlights include a 4-year-old slicing up a slalom course, a monoski Paralympic gold medalist dropping into a half-pipe and a giddy 90-year-old taking a header on a groomer without breaking a hip.

“Impact” makes less of one than past films (Miller may have outdone himself with that mind-boggling, 41-second free fall in “Cold Fusion”), but it remains an effective stoke-starting aperitif for the long-awaited ski season.