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what do you actually do on law review?
what are the best positions?
how much time does it take?
do students produce the articles?

You basically become an editor/fact checker and eventually might be able to contribute a Note.

thats it? no research or writing. who authors the articles?

The articles are mostly written by professors and academics. Between 5-10 percent of students on Law Review get their note published, though most (I think) require students to write a note anyway. It's a huge, miserable time suck, but you have to do it. Mostly it involves tracking down whatever obscure source the author cited (if you can even figure out what they were trying to cite), and reading through the whole sucker to find whatever quote they didn't bother to give you a page for. It's a bit better your 3rd year. Expect to spend 30-40 hours on it some weeks, 0 on others. You usually don't get too much notice as to which week will be crazy.

If you manage to get on it, you should do it though. Just don't think that you're doing it for anything other than the resume line.

At my school, you have to write a Note or Comment regardless of whether you are going to try for getting it published or not. You also work on editing and cite checking. That part is is incredibly tedious and time consuming. I tried to get it done on the weekends and would be at the law review office from early morning into the night on Saturdays or Sundays. You can also expect to get pushed around some by the board.

Personally, I did not find it particularly rewarding or helpful other than becoming a Bluebook master. Do it for the resume thing.

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Do all schools have "grade-on" or are some strictly "write-on?"

And what does it take to grade on?