Mars and Earth will only be 92 million miles apart at closest encounter on April 14th 2014, called ‘opposition’. Mars will appear red-gold, glowing brighter than first magnitude stars.
Only Jupiter, the Moon and Venus before sunrise will be brighter.
Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter. As March gives way to April, the distance between the two planets is shrinking by about 300 km every minute. When the convergence ends in mid-April, the gulf between Earth and Mars will have narrowed to only 92 million km--a small number on the vast scale of the solar system.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/28mar_opposition/