Restricting movieclips

Hey guys/girls,

I have a question regarding the management of movieclips…

I have done my research and found a tedious way to achieve what i want, but i dont know what i should be searching to find the exact answer im looking for… So hopefully one of you here can help me out…

I have a project where by buttons are pressed and movieclips are played - the thing is if i press one button the first movieclip plays, if i press another button whilst that movieclip plays the second movieclip interfears and both play at once…

Is there a line of code in AS 2 that disables buttons untill the current movieclip is finished playing? Or is there a code that stops current playing movieclips and plays the most recently called on?

I can use the _visible=false; on release and list all movieclips except the one being called but that seems to me, a dodgy way to do it…

Any help would be greatly appreciated